Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion. Pub.Vintage Books, 2010.

This is a senior secondary/young Adult book and it is about zombies. In fact it is a zombie love story.

It is set in a decaying world in which zombies rule and feed on humans. They particularly like the human brain and they eat it in small chunks because each mouthful gives them the experience and memory from the human from whom the brain came.

R is a zombie although a recent zombie. He doesn’t really know as he has no memory of being an ordinary human. He has no sense of taste, any sexual feelings have gone and he is decaying away at a slow rate. He cannot form sentences and talks in two word phrases with that gap in between. Worst of all he knows neither how long his present condition will last nor if he will eventually decay away to bones and die.

The zombies all live at the airport now deserted by humans and every so often they do a human hunt in the decaying city. These are blood thirsty and violent as the zombies dismember humans and eat them, leaving the choice bit, the brain, for last.

R has a friend M and on a raid in the city, R takes a live human woman and disguises her in blood and gore so that she looks like a zombie. Why does he do this? How does the human, Julie feel about it? Can a zombie fall in love? and deeper still can a human woman fall in love with a zombie? The biggest challenge is to keep Julie a secret from M and the other zombies.

I never promote a book without hope and in the second part of this novel hope arrives, but will it be allowed to persevere?

Interesting stuff. I was amused, revolted, mentally stimulated and heartened at the same time. Stephenie Myer said “I never thought I could care so passionately for a zombie”. I think I feel the same.

I will let you make your own mind up. But it is definitely senior literature. If you want something very different then this is it.

A Fallen Novel Part 2. Torment by Lauren Kate

Torment by Lauren Kate. Pub. Doubleday, 2010.

If you want to know where all the Twilight readers have gone to and what they are reading now, then check this Fallen series out.

The plot and storyline will be very familiar to you but the lovers in this are called Luce and Daniel and instead of Vampires and werewolves we have Fallen Angels. The angels are divided and the darkness side are after Luce and Daniel must protect her.

After the battle at the end of the Fallen, Luce is taken out of her old school in Georgia and sent to California to attend The Shoreline school. The girls aren’t as steely c0ld as in Fallen because  they are in awe of Luce and her legendary love affair with Daniel.

The main villains in this book are the Outcasts, a sect of spineless waffling angels, who have been shunned by both heaven and hell and nasty sinister creatures they are.

Luce has been around before in several other lives and Daniel tells her all about her past lives. But is he telling the truth and will a rival emerge?

I cannot tell you too much about this novel except that Luce goes blond and after a similar slow start to Fallen, once the action heats up you won’t be able to put the book down. Do so in the knowledge that part 4 Passion will be out early next year.

Intermediate and  secondary students will love this esp[ecially girls but pass it on to your mothers.

Dark Calling by Darren Shan

Dark Calling by Darren Shan. Pub. HarperCollins children’s books, 2009

This is the 9th book in the Demonata series by the best writer of horror, writing for children. He started with the Saga of Darren Shan, the best series on vampires I have read.

The Demonata series is terrifying at times and totally brutal and gory at others. This 9th book is no different.

Throughout the series beginning with Lord Loss the main character is Kernel Fleck and his master is Beranabus and together with a load of other beings they control the entry of demons from the Demonata world into our world and destroy them. Whenever demons appear there is brutality and gore for those who like that sort of stuff.

In this novel Darren Shan begins with Kernel Fleck having his eyeballs eaten out, a horrifying description but the key to the whole story. He replaces the eyeballs in the magical realm but doesn’t realise that this has been contrived by beings from the past called The Old Creatures.

A powerful new force called the Shadow has united all the demons for a big push on the forces that wish to destroy them and we have a battle royal on our hands.

Clever writing from a master of horror. Not for everybody these books but for afficionadoes there are none better. For your older mature reader.