Warm Bodies: A Novel

: [...]the basicsWarm Bodies is by far one of the best books I've ever read. I mean, come on. It's like Tim Burton and Chuck Palahniuk wrote a love story. Only don't get me wrong, Isaac Marion is no derivative. (Also I may have a little crush on him. What? Hiding.) Okay, so this book is not your average romance. Zombie R, meet Julie. And yes, I didn't notice the Romeo-Juliet parallel til the book. Saw the movie? It was great, but the book has layers and layers of depth that the movie misses. Grappling with themes of progress and decay, cynicism and hope, despair and redemption, it pulls you into a world terrifyingly easy to imagine, where humanity's inward decay has become manifest. Zombies. But love saves all, and somehow, Julie and R forge a bond that overcomes the darkness around them. It's sweet but not saccharine and bursting with writing as pretty as poetry, but still perfectly accessible to the average reader. Don't worry; the plot kicks ass too, tearing you from one confrontation to another. It's the book that every author wishes they could write. So read it, yeah?plot . 5/5You don't get bored, even though much of the beginning describes a vapid, listless zombie existence. Marion has created a rich world inside of R's head. Don't expect the movie. You won't find a blow-by-blow. What you will find is a lot of the same scenes fixed into a much richer narrative. Perry's inner existence in R's head becomes much more important, and we find much of the plot centered around Perry's despair and R's hope, mixed together in one mind. But there's plenty of fun too, and adventure; the change-hating Boneys; moments of acid humor and sweetness. The end starts with a shock and leaves you feeling wistful and thoughtful and very much in love with love.concept . 5/5I'm not sure I could have come up with a more original concept if I were trying for a parody. I'd always joked about zombie romance in the past. "Love at First Bite" and all that (though that might have been for a cannibal...). But Marion takes it and makes it plausible, lovable, and meaningful. R's condition is a foil for humanity. Julie is the savior and young idealist. Perry is the victim of the system. And the world is something all too familiar--run by fear-mongerers who see isolation as the only survival. Famous art is a useless bauble. Nations are obsolete. Marion uses a very compelling story to explore deep issues of societal corruption and the power of fear. But if you don't want to dig that deep, the surface story is amazing in itself.characters . 5/5Totally in love with R. Especially the Nicholas Hoult version. I mean...come on. Anyway, book-R is a silent philosopher with a poetic view of the world. He can't talk much, so he listens. Observes. Sees things that others can't see in a rich and surprising way. Julie is a little annoying at times, but you grow to love her. You can't help but get behind her fragile idealism. And she's deeper than in the movie, with a darker past and uglier wounds. Nora, Perry, M, and Grigio too are all explored on a deep level. Even though we don't see them as much, we come to know them as clearly as if we were in their heads. Marion has himself a real world here.style . 5/5I could quote every other line, but I won't, because that's plagiarism. Suffice to say, it's gorgeous. Like what a painting would be in book form. I'll borrow from Maggie Stiefvater's review: "I dream my necrotic cells shrugging off their lethargy, inflating and lighting up like Christmas deep in my dark core. Am I inventing all this like the beer buzz? A placebo? An optimistic illusion? Either way, I feel the flatline of my existence disrupting, forming heartbeat hills and valleys." Don't be afraid of getting the story lost because of the poetry. The beautiful, intricate lines are well mingled with less esoteric stuff, so the prettiness feels natural instead of overwhelming.mechanics . 5/5Zombie narrator. OMG.take home messageA love story between the most unlikely pair, with striking prose, a thrilling plot, and many thoughts to take away and keep forever. Read more

When I saw the trailer for the movie on TV last night, I texted my sister that we just had to go so it! I looked up exactly when it came out and found that there was a book. I didn't realize that there was a book first and since I am writing this I obviously read it. If there is a book and a movie, I never like to see the movie before I read the book. It is always a letdown reversing the order. Since my husband had to spend the night at his mothers (she is ill and needs 24 hour care), I could not sleep well so I read mostly all night until the sun came up...before I knew it the sun was almost up and I was done with the book. I suppose the speaks very well of the story!First of all, I really loved how the book was written from the point of view of the Zombie. I don't particularly like typical zombie movies but I do love the Walking Dead. (AMC CHECK IT OUT!) After watching that show for nearly 3 years it has crossed my mind more than once about the thought patterns of the walkers. It is always about the living, but what about the dead? There must be something going on in there! That is the one thing that pulled me into this story so quickly and held me there. It was nice to hear that there were thoughts left in the Dead and that is was not simply a hunger and then flat line over and over again. I was taken by R right away also. Of course it helped to have a face with the "name", courtesy of the movie. It did not hurt that the face was handsome even at its worst! I like to get a clear picture of at least the main characters and this is yet another reason that I like books and movies together. Anyway, R was a very likable guy. It was very cool that he was telling the story in human words. That he could think within himself yet cannot form words...at least not at first. Not only could he think, he was very intelligent! It really made me wonder about the rest of the Dead. M was a great character as well. I have not see a pic of who plays him yet but I want that to be a surprise. I formed my own look for him and I want to see how close I came. You can tell at various points during the beginning that M was not a run of the mill zombie either. The fact that he is still interested in the opposite sex shows that. It also goes along with the implication that the sex organs are not what cause arousal since that part of the zombies doesn't work. Kind of kills the idea of castration for punishment for rape or molestation. Okay, I know that I have lost sight of the topic but I tend to go that way sometimes...on to the actual story!So we get to a point where Julie realizes that there is more to the Dead than they were taught. It appears that the younger generation have a much firmer grasp on reality, in addition to more open and receptive minds. Once it all begins to play out in the second part of the book, who and what the boneys starts to become more clear. However (and here is the reason for the loss of one star), this part of the story should have been more developed. There was so much to work with here! The fact that things went a lot deeper than life and death and natural and supernatural is apparent. Why didn't the author elaborate on this area more? This was disappointing. Also, the ending was disappointing. Maybe the author thought he was being clear on what the case was but he really was not. It was elusive and even though some books are better for having ended by letting the reader draw their own conclusions, this was not one of them. I would really like to speak with him to see what he was thinking. I am sure it was not out of laziness as some other reviews suggest, because this is a professional writer. They typically don't work like that. But I would like to know. I was left really wanting more and feeling like the book did not end...just stopped abruptly without telling us the rest. I will be looking through the internet for fan stories. I imagine that there are some. If you are not familiar with these, it is when fans of a story write an add on to the original work (with a disclaimer of course). If I cannot find a good one I may just write one myself (I have work published on here as well so check me out!).Overall, I really loved the story, just met with some major disappointments towards the middle and end. It was worth reading though and I am looking forward to seeing the movie soon! Enjoy!

I watched the movie and instantly fell in love with the storyline... I actually watched 5 times in just under a week! Some might say that that's a little over the top, but It was one of those movies that I just couldn't seem to get out of my head. A few days later I found out that there was a book series, and instantly felt the need to read it - I wanted as much out of this storyline -and the characters in it- as possible! I must admit that I haven't actually quite finished reading it yet, as I'm just about closing in on the ending. But what I have read so far has come to it being the first book for a long time that I want to stay up all night reading. If you enjoyed the movie, you'll like this even more!! Cant wait to read the next one.

After reading MK Burton's excellent review above there isn't really much to say except that I agree completely. Zombies seem to be competing with vampires for book and film sales at the moment and it is much easier to make vampires more acceptable and romantic than it is to do it for a shambling corpse. Isaac Marion has skilfully taken the classic Romeo and Juliet love story, set it against the zombie apocalypse and made it relevant for today's reader. This book is so good that I read it in one sitting which is most unusual for me nowadays.Mr Marion is a very skilled wordsmith as Burton has illustrated and if I can be forgiven for copying his method just read the author's description of sleep: 'Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping that when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below'. How profound and poetic is that? Remember it next time you wake from a bad dream.This story is so complete that I suspect the author may not return to the wonderful but awful world that he created but I for one can't wait to read what he writes next.

R is a Zombie. I slow-walking, man-eating, black-blooded Zombie who lives at an abandoned airport with over a dozen or so other Zombies. But he is also the narrator and threw his mind we find that he has what no Zombie ever in the history of the media has ever had before; emotions. He feels hurt, curiosity, pain and most of all guilt. But his lack ambitions, hopes or dreams keeps them stuck in this separated area between the living and the dead. All he stride towards is what kind of meat he can catch and what life he can take. But when R eats the memories of a boy named Perry, a girl named Julie comes into his mind and when R looks in the room, she's sitting right in front of her. In a sudden violent jerk of change and emotion, R rescues Julie, keeping her in at his home in an old jet, spending the time playing old records, giving her Pad Tai to eat and listening as she begins to pore her heart out to him and R slowly begins to change.In this book, everything bad that could have happened, happened - the dead are rising, all the food's going down, everything's in drought or in a flood etc. - and humanity is not hiding wherever they can and, in this area, even in stadiums. I know about The Walking Dead - both the video game and the TV program - and I can honestly say that I see nothing about those Zombies and the Zombies in this book. Most of these Zombies are emotionless, nameless and brainless, but some of them seem to have an idea of what's going on around them and how things are changing and some of them want to be a part of it. I liked the idea about how that when a Zombie eats the brains of a living person they sort of absorb the memories of that person so they have a sort of vision of that person's life. I found the Bony's - those skeleton-like creatures that are basically in charge of this whole thing - to be really creepy and I really liked having them there as some sort of opposition besides the humans (sorry, Living, as R calls them). There is quite a lot of gore in this book, but I managed to gloss over or skip some of those parts and still get the general idea about it, but I do think that if you don't like gore that this might not be suitable for you. I've seen the trailer for the Warm Bodies movie and R doesn't look how he's described in the book. In the movie, R is dressed like a teenager - red hoody, grey T-shirt, jeans - while in the book, R is described as wearing a red tie and a (used to be white) grey shirt and is supposed to be dressed like a business man, so you get the general idea that R is supposed to be around about early to mid twenties, at the least, so I found that kind of hard to picture since my picture of R kept going back and forth between the two images. I thought that the world in which this was set in was really cool (wouldn't want to be there though) and I liked how the story was written in this "present tense" mode where he describes everything as if he's there in that moment - I thought that was a really good writing style for this kind of a story. R is my favourite leading male protagonist in any book I have read so far; he's funny, he's sweet, he's kind, (he can rip you to shreds but that's okay), he's thoughtful and hopeful and I just cannot put it into worlds how much he makes me smile both as a character and as a narrator. Julie is awesome and I love how she's not too much of a miserable character or that she's got no reason to do dangerous things in that she has a reason; she's not a damsel in distress, she's feisty and she can take care of herself pretty well and I love how she doesn't fall in love with R straight away (him being a Zombie and all) and I kind of like her resistance towards R. M is really funny and I find the fact that he can't remember the rest of his name but can remember how and when to say f*** or s***; I like how he's R's friend and how he, unlike other Zombies, actually helps and seems to care about R and I like it when R calls out for M's help and he comes. Nora was a fun, but kind of forgettable character, but I like how she response well to R when she first meets him. Perry was annoying; I found that sometimes I just wanted him to go away sooner and it kind of came to the point where I was screaming at the book 'Why are you even here, Perry?'; I understand that Perry, and his memories, are important in the book, but I didn't get why he had to be such a big part and why it sometimes snapped over to some of his memories - though I did find it both funny and cool at the part where he breaks threw and talks to R as a person. I didn't, at some points, why Julie's Dad was there to be anything else but an annoyance and something to get in between Julie and R (not spoiling anything here!); however, I do feel sorry for him in that he's a man who simply wants to survive. I think R and Julie have, by far, one of the best romantic relationships ever; there's something Beauty and the Beast about it where they're not sure about each other at first but then form a small team by the end of the book. One of my favourite parts of the book was the first time Julie hugs R - she's grossed out and a bit repulsed by the hug at first, but then she gives in and hugs him like a normal person. Some parts of this book are very deep and meaningful in which it questions about life and death and humanity and how what it takes to be human.Sweet, fun and kind of horrifying, I'm not even sure what category this book is set in. It has action, romance, horror and a slight twinge of humour sprinkled in; I could barely put it down.

Warm Bodies is a dystopian novel, written by the Seattle based Isaac Marion. Whether it is a work of science fiction with a romantic edge or a romantic comedy with undertones of science fiction is debatable, but it has many relatable themes. The most important is to do with the disintegration of both the Earth and society. The book warns us how our world will look, and how our people will feel if we do not change now. Another theme is love and how it can heal, cure and overcome whatever barriers stand in the way.The core relationship is between a young zombie R who lives in an old plane and rendered unable to communicate beyond grunts at first gets kicks from eating brains with his friend M; and a livelier, scatty girl called Julie who comes from a safe compound made out of an old stadium. The first encounter between zombies and humans occurs relatively early in the novel, and is a graphic scene of blood, guts and gore which is very vivid and believable in a comic kind of style. Along with scientific illustrations of parts of the body from Gray's Anatomy, the goriness, foul scenes and mindless, zombie detachment juxtapose well with and help the reader to understand the warmth of the blossoming relationship, particularly from the perspective of R.The couple find holding down their relationship hard not only due to physical barriers implemented by their elders, but also space time barriers they and society have constructed. However they feel compelled to strive to overcome the odds and inspire a cure for mankind. Their aim like that of many lead characters in works of a similar theme is to stop evil and save the world.There's an underlying sadness to the novel, I couldn't help but feel sad for R and the guilt he felt when he met Julie. I also felt bad for the zombies' dead victims who seemed to haunt and guide R. However it is a novel about new starts, fresh outlooks and forgiving. Human survival dominates the need to mourn and post modern romance will hopefully prevail.By the end of Warm Bodies most parents are dead and children fostered. Emphasis is made upon the desire parents have to protect and almost hold back their children. I feel the elders are all regarded as a little out of touch. Was this part of the cause of the dystopian society in the first place? I believe an important message Marion conveys, is in an ever changing world it is important now more than ever that people work together, not against one another. That they live and let live.Really funny in parts, very tongue in cheek so none of the disturbing issues come across too scary, a good read for adults and teenagers alike I reckon. I could relate to both the zombies and the humans. I can definitely see why it's been adapted to a film.

If you wished to give Warm Bodies a pithy popular culture summation, you might say "It's like Twilight but with a Zombie" though this gives the general gist as to what the novel is about, it is unfair to both it and its author Isaac Marion.Warm Bodies has been a resounding success for Marion, he originally self published it, but it took off by word of mouth to such a degree it has received a physical publication both here and in America and this year the movie adaptation starring British actor Nicholas Hoult in the lead will be released. This book was mentioned in passing (just author and title) to me on Twitter, but after looking it up and seeing it was a zombie novel and a romance at that, it took me mere seconds to buy it, and I'm not in the least ashamed of this!Warm Bodies begins with the line : I'm dead but it's not so bad. I've learned to live with it.so right there in the opening line it gets you as all good novels are supposed to do, and thus begins the absorbing and slightly melancholic tale of R, a zombie living among a hive of fellow soulless beings at an airport. He doesn't have much of a vocabulary nor much of a thought process, but he has a wife, sort of, and kids, sort of.One day he goes hunting with his friend of sorts M. Zombies savour the brains of their victims because they see their memories as they consume them giving them a fleeting remembrance of what it was like to be human once. Having done this to one man R recognises his next potential victim as his previous victim's girlfriend, deciding not to kill her, he drags her home to his unusual lodgings and our romance develops from there.Warm Bodies is in many ways inherently flawed not least because a zombie by definition cannot have the feelings and behaviours which R exhibits, but neither realistically can a vampire. So you have to let that canon slide if you want to enjoy this book. It has some other mild issues it lacks a level of profundity at times despite good quality prose, is a little episodic in nature as opposed to a steady ongoing plot flow and I was torn over whether it's homage to the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet was utterly genius or utterly corny. I did read it in one sitting though, will watch the movie and would read other novels by Marion.It is an endearing novel and certainly an original concept. It hasn't got much in terms of actual literary merit but is extremely entertaining. 9/10