Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Publisher:  Atria Books
Publish Date:  April 26, 2011
ISBN:  978-1439192313 
Pages:  256


I was intrigued by WARM BODIES.  Oh I know, in Generation Dead there's a living girl and a zombie guy dating and it was ok.  But the zombies weren't feeding on people and decaying.  WARM BODIES is narrated by R.  He can't remember his name, just the first letter, he is of course a zombie.  He thinks a lot, his listens to Frank Sinatra, rides the escalators at the airport for fun...he's not your usual zombie.

Then there's Julie.  She's the living girl R rescues/kidnaps.  She lives in a sports dome with tons of other people.  She's on a mission with her kind of boyfriend and best friend when the zombies attack and she sees one of them kill her kind of boyfriend.  When R decides to take her, he disguises her as a zombie and hides her in an airplane.  Julie seems to actually enjoy the diversion after a bit.

R has a lot of deep thoughts, he just can't articulate them, but he communicates with his best friend, M, pretty well.  They have a bit of sarcastic humor throughout the book and it was pretty funny.  R is changing though and the Boneys don't like it, not one bit.  The Boneys seem to be the self-appointed rulers of the zombie hives, they are, as the name suggests, just bone.  No one knows if they looked like the rest of them before, I mean R even wonders how long they've been zombies.  He has no memories of anything.

I've always wondered why zombies eat brains.  Is it the delicacy of the human body?  Wouldn't the spleen taste just as good?  R explains it to us:  when the zombies eat your brain, they experience your memories, your life, your emotions...and in color.  It's almost like a high and then they go back to their gray lives.  R doesn't gloss over the more disgusting habits of zombies, I like that.  He explains them and moves on.  


I buy into zombies having their own society - every creature does - why not them too?  He touches on zombie children playing and learning to kill, zombie marriage and the lack of zombie sex. (thank goodness!!)  I think that two of the best scenes are when the zombie children are learning how to kill a Living and when Living children are learning to kill a zombie.  It shows that even though different, they're all the same.  They're all just trying to survive.

At the bottom of the story is that sweet little love story between R and Julie.  It was always there, but it wasn't mushy or gross or weird.  It was just sweet.  I LIKE R and I want you to like him too.