Book Review: Breathers, A Zombie's Lament
[mood| 
accomplished]
[music| "Ruby Blue" - Roisin Murphy]
So I finished reading this book tonight:
It was uh-mazing! :D And I just found out that Diablo Cody is producing the film adaptation for it! :D I'm confident that she'll do a decent adaptation of it.
Anyways, here are my thoughts on the book:
The entire book is told from the view point of Andy, a recently reanimated corpse who lives in Santa Cruz county, California with his parents.
He was in his mid-30s when he died due to him falling asleep at the wheel on the way back from a party with his wife, Rachel, and his daughter, Annie. His wife ended up dying (but did not reanimate) and his daughter lived.
Andy lives in a world, though, where zombies are known to the global populous, but they are not respected and are often feared due to the portrayal of them being vicious creatures that crave only human flesh. According to Andy, however, this is not true. Zombies have feelings (or memories of them, at least) and feel just as hurt when someone throws food at them or, in Andy's case, are not allowed to see their children again. They are treated like animals; being picked up by Animal Control whenever they are reported by a human (or "Breather") for causing a disturbance and they no longer have the same rights that they did when they were a Breather.
When we first meet Andy, however, it's after he's awoken from a drunken stupor, ice cream covering the floor of his parents' kitchen, with his parents chopped up and placed in the fridge and the freezer. From there, his narration backtracks to explain how he got into that predicament before it switches back to his present time and unfolds once he decides what to do with his parents.
The writing was funny and intelligent, with Andy serving as a good narrator because, for most of the novel, he doesn't utter a word out loud. When he was in the car accident that caused his death, his vocal chords were so badly damaged that any noise that he made came out in an unintelligible grunt or screech. So any communication that he makes, he makes by writing on a dry erase board that he wears around his neck like a necklace.
The one problem I had with it was that the main driving force behind the conflict that makes the book was that it was too predictable. At least for me. To the author's credit, however, when Andy comes to this major revelation regarding the source of the conflict, he does mention that he had a feeling that there was something odd about the source, but he was in denial because things started to go so well in his undead life.
I liked the characters and their little nuances and became attached to the point that when two of them died, I was in tears. But a lot of that emotion stemmed from the fact that one of the characters had so much ahead of them to look forward to that it was just a blow to the gut when I found out that they were killed off.
Andy's observations and cultural references are witty without being too forced and I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much if it wasn't for Andy's comments on the situations he encountered because some of novel becomes so twisted and gross that Andy's narration provides a level of humor and normality because he tries as much as he possible can to behave like he did when he was still alive.
Another thing that disappointed me was that Andy talks so much of how he can't stand the stereotype of zombies that Hollywood perpetuates, yet, by the end of the novel, that's what he and his zombie friends become. The reasoning behind those changes are relatively justified, but still. I liked how Andy and the other zombies depicted in the book retained some sense of dignity, regardless of their status as social pariahs.
Overall, though. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I suggest it to anyone. :)
I didn't want to give away too much, so I hope this is a sufficient enough summary of events.
And I'm sure a lot of you are getting sick of the page rapes that I've been having lately due to all of the pictures I've been posting (I'm kind of sorry about that XD), but I'm pretty sure my Tom FeltonHarry Potter picspams are done because the two major premiere for Half Blood Prince are over and done with. :'(
How were your respective days today, darlings?
accomplished]
[music| "Ruby Blue" - Roisin Murphy]
So I finished reading this book tonight:
It was uh-mazing! :D And I just found out that Diablo Cody is producing the film adaptation for it! :D I'm confident that she'll do a decent adaptation of it.
Anyways, here are my thoughts on the book:
The entire book is told from the view point of Andy, a recently reanimated corpse who lives in Santa Cruz county, California with his parents.
He was in his mid-30s when he died due to him falling asleep at the wheel on the way back from a party with his wife, Rachel, and his daughter, Annie. His wife ended up dying (but did not reanimate) and his daughter lived.
Andy lives in a world, though, where zombies are known to the global populous, but they are not respected and are often feared due to the portrayal of them being vicious creatures that crave only human flesh. According to Andy, however, this is not true. Zombies have feelings (or memories of them, at least) and feel just as hurt when someone throws food at them or, in Andy's case, are not allowed to see their children again. They are treated like animals; being picked up by Animal Control whenever they are reported by a human (or "Breather") for causing a disturbance and they no longer have the same rights that they did when they were a Breather.
When we first meet Andy, however, it's after he's awoken from a drunken stupor, ice cream covering the floor of his parents' kitchen, with his parents chopped up and placed in the fridge and the freezer. From there, his narration backtracks to explain how he got into that predicament before it switches back to his present time and unfolds once he decides what to do with his parents.
The writing was funny and intelligent, with Andy serving as a good narrator because, for most of the novel, he doesn't utter a word out loud. When he was in the car accident that caused his death, his vocal chords were so badly damaged that any noise that he made came out in an unintelligible grunt or screech. So any communication that he makes, he makes by writing on a dry erase board that he wears around his neck like a necklace.
The one problem I had with it was that the main driving force behind the conflict that makes the book was that it was too predictable. At least for me. To the author's credit, however, when Andy comes to this major revelation regarding the source of the conflict, he does mention that he had a feeling that there was something odd about the source, but he was in denial because things started to go so well in his undead life.
I liked the characters and their little nuances and became attached to the point that when two of them died, I was in tears. But a lot of that emotion stemmed from the fact that one of the characters had so much ahead of them to look forward to that it was just a blow to the gut when I found out that they were killed off.
Andy's observations and cultural references are witty without being too forced and I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much if it wasn't for Andy's comments on the situations he encountered because some of novel becomes so twisted and gross that Andy's narration provides a level of humor and normality because he tries as much as he possible can to behave like he did when he was still alive.
Another thing that disappointed me was that Andy talks so much of how he can't stand the stereotype of zombies that Hollywood perpetuates, yet, by the end of the novel, that's what he and his zombie friends become. The reasoning behind those changes are relatively justified, but still. I liked how Andy and the other zombies depicted in the book retained some sense of dignity, regardless of their status as social pariahs.
Overall, though. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I suggest it to anyone. :)
I didn't want to give away too much, so I hope this is a sufficient enough summary of events.
And I'm sure a lot of you are getting sick of the page rapes that I've been having lately due to all of the pictures I've been posting (I'm kind of sorry about that XD), but I'm pretty sure my Tom FeltonHarry Potter picspams are done because the two major premiere for Half Blood Prince are over and done with. :'(
How were your respective days today, darlings?