Warm Bodies
Ratings133
Average rating3.8
I love the movie Warm Bodies because it's a teen rom-com set in a post-apocalyptic world that is also a great metaphor for the epidemic of depression in the U.S. And because the saying goes ‘the book is always better', I picked up the book from a dusty bookshelf and started reading.
Books like these make me sad: the author had a solid idea and a great message to tell the world, but the execution is something to sigh and groan about. The romance was pretty insta and only happened because of her dead boyfriend's memories and feelings circulating in R's brain. In fact, I have no idea if R really loves Julie (who is the true manic pixie dream girl) or if it's just Perry, the dead boyfriend, placing these thoughts and feelings.
I think the message of this book is great: when the world's crashing and burning, you can still be able to enjoy life. But between R being a zombie and witnessing all of Perry's memories and thoughts, it really should feel that Perry should be the protagonist. He's far more fleshed out than R, is more interesting because of it, and actually has good groundwork for a character arc.
Perry obviously had severe depression in life, adopting nihilism and staying in a pessimistic mindset. If he got what he wanted, death, but came back as a zombie and saw what he wanted was worse off than where he was, it would make a compelling story and more articulate the message of the book: when the lights go out, that doesn't mean you should too.
The movie, I feel, really excelled here in just sticking to a teen audience by only conveying one message of the book: have compassion for people who have mental illness. Not to mention, at the time more teens could relate to the allegory of depression. This theme doesn't really come up in the book all that much. The first few chapters set this up, only to be interrupted by Perry's story for most of the book, and then be revived in the last few chapters.
TLDR; good message but horrible execution. The movie was better.
Okay, this book was as good as I remembered - which also made me notice that my English has gotten significantly better since the first time reading this lmao.
Now to the book itself - it pains me to do it, but back in 2016 my teenage brain thought it was so good (could also be because I watched the movie first and Nicholas Hoult had me in a choke-hold) that it deserved 5 stars, but now years later after a reread it might be a 4.5 star. Marion can be very descriptive in some of his scenes, but his writing is spectacular. Unfortunately it gives me mild LOTR flashbacks and for a book that's advertised as YA (pretty sure it's not YA), it should not be that deep (in my opinion). But despite that little fact the characters are likeable.
Well-written book that becomes more complex as R develops. The sexual elements added in throughout were a bit of a turned-off. Other elements also became weird. The female fell into a ‘girl needing to be saved' trope, but only became annoying when I noticed it.
Overall, I prefer the movie in this case.
3.5 stars
So, after writing this review I realized it might be a little bit spoilery so I just wanted to warn you to skip this review if you don't want to be spoiled. I don't think I included any major spoilers though.
Jonny and I picked this book because it sounded like a mix of what we both enjoy reading. You all know I love my romance and Jonny loves horror. This is kind of a zombie romance so I would say it definitely delivered on that front.
I personally love reading zombie books although I haven't really read that many. I think this was a fun and different take on zombies. This book is told from R's POV. R is the zombie by the way. I've never read a book where we get the POV of a zombie which makes sense. In this book R is different he still has some semblance of his human self but the zombie side pretty much has control until he meets Julie. Julie is a human girl who he ends up taking captive when he saves her from being eaten by himself and his little group of zombies. Julie is a strong female lead especially with everything she's gone through some of which we only hear about and some we see happening throughout the book. Despite being strong she's also vulnerable, but she doesn't let that vulnerability take over.
As Jonny said in his review my issues with this book are with the plot. We get zero answers in this book. We are left with so many questions. Like so many. Once Julie and R meet things with R and the zombies start to happen and we have no clue what is going on or why these things are happening. These things needed to be explained or at least touched on a little bit.
There was one other thing that kind of bothered me while reading this. When a zombie eats the brain of their victim, they end up seeing their memories or something which that's all good. My issue is that R ate this one person's brain and all throughout the book we kept getting little flashes of those memories and it was like they were talking to each other and sometimes Julie would be in those memories, and she would talk to R it was all weird and it kind of took me out of the story. I would have preferred to just not have those parts because honestly, I don't really think they did anything for the story overall.
Overall, I enjoyed this book enough to give the second book a chance but if I'm still left with a lot of questions after reading that one, I don't know if I will continue on with the series.
I started reading this book around 3 or 4 in the morning. I wasn't expecting to like it all that much. But I did. It may have been vulgar and ridiculous at some moments (which explains the 3 stars), but I enjoyed Marion's take on the zombie apocalypse. I also think that it's more than just the zombie apocalypse, one could also argue that it is about a man who is “dead” inside and, after he meets a girl, starts to change and experience hope and happiness. One could also argue it's about a man whose views change about a certain issue... Going from “dead” to living and positive. I really enjoyed the book and want to see the movie now.
This is a romance story but more than that, it's a zombie romance. This one is particular because it's ‘R' the zombie who is telling the story. He doesn't remember how he became a zombie but he knows he's different than the others. He talks and listens to music and when he eats the brains of his victims he remembers a part of their lives.
During a hunt he meets Julie, he doesn't want to eat her but he wants to save her. He starts to bound with her and something inside of his zombie body changes.
Not only this is a romance book but also a post-apocalyptic tale and the questionning what would happen to humanity if we lost it all.
Well written, funny and sweet at the same time.
I love, love, love this book! I have quite the zombie thing, and have read many a great zombie story at this point, and this is one of my all time favorites. It is not at all what you would expect. It is deeply moving, romantic, philosophical, and bursting the the seems with the love of life and hope. I feel inspired. It's one of those books that makes you want to change the world, and yes, it is about zombies.
The characters are well fleshed out (okay I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist). The writing is flawless. It pulled me through the story so wonderfully. It's a really different and interesting take on the whole zombie mythos.
The Romeo and Juliet parallels were fantastic also. I love how they took the familiar idea and subverted it.
I would say, even if you don't traditionally like zombies or horror, if you do like incredibly thought provoking reads, check this one out.
I can also say the audiobook for this one was incredible.
Modern young adult (ish) novels seem to mostly be written like B Horror movies. It seems all about the threat and worry of something happening while few things actually do happen. They read as though the authors suffer from a sort of “good enough” syndrome. It's a disappointing trend.
The book wasn't terrible. It was different and weird as you'd expect from the subject matter, but it wasn't great. I read it out of curiosity and it was pretty much what I expected it would be, actually a little better but still.
I don't normally get into paranormal books, but I found this one really interesting and enjoyable.
Enjoyable. The kids really loved the movie and I show the trailer in booktalks, and I have to say, this is one of the few times where I think I may actually prefer the movie over the book. The book's interesting, but the movie excises a few of the more slow-moving and secondary plot lines, making it funnier and snappier.
Estava esperando um final bem diferente bem menos sem noção porque nada terminou explicando alguma coisa, ou, pelo menos, deixando um gosto de “quero mais” por mais inexplicável que o livro termine...
Mas a idéia do livro sobre zumbis, a critica ao nosso mundo apodrecido e apodrecendo, mostrando que podemos nos tornar “zumbis de nós mesmos” achei demais!
As personagens são bem feitas e interessantes a seu modo - sim, com certeza R é demais!
Ponto negativo: por mais que eu fale palavrão, minha frescura poética não é muito a favor de lê-los adjetivando o mundo...
De resto ta joinha :) 2.5 stars for him!
When I first read about this book my first thought was “Twilight Anew” and didn't really consider reading it, but when a friend whose taste in books I trust almost completely I marked it as to reed during semester break. What I can say is that it was time well spent.
I saw the trailers for the movie, and decided I needed to read the book. I was pleasantly surprised. the writing is actually beautiful, with excellent use of imagery and a dry sense of humor. I thought this was going to be a really stupid book, but I was way wrong. I didn't like the ending as much as I liked the beginning, but overall it was a great read.
I give this book a 4.5/5. I really enjoyed it, however the ending was very open ended which I'm not particularly fond of. However, overall this book was really good and I loved Issac Marion's take on the whole zombie apocalypse theme. It was interesting to read a book about a zombie with feelings and even more interesting when he actually falls in love with a human! I definitely recommend this book!
I really enjoyed this book. reading from a zombie's point of view is really interesting. I am extremely excited for the movie, as I think it'll be slightly better than the book, which is a rare thing for me to say.
Great book. not much else to say without getting carried away and ruining it for everyone. Cant wait for the movie.
Reseña:
NO SE DEJEN GUIAR POR EL TRAILER O EL TÍTULO DE LA PELÍCULA EN ESPAÑOL.
Vamos, en cuanto ves el tráiler te haces inmediatamente con La idea de:
“Otra bobada que denigra al género y a todos los monstruos que tanto tememos y amamos”
Pues no, la verdad es que la historia es mucho más que eso. Muchísimo.
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