Review: Warm Bodies

Title: Warm Bodies

Author: Isaac Marion

Published: 2011

Pages: 226

My Rating: 3/5

R is a young man with an existential crisis--he is a zombie. He shuffles through an America destroyed by war, social collapse, and the mindless hunger of his undead comrades, but he craves something more than blood and brains. He can speak just a few grunted syllables, but his inner life is deep, full of wonder and longing. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he has dreams.
After experiencing a teenage boy's memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and strangely sweet relationship with the victim's human girlfriend. Julie is a blast of color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that surrounds R. His decision to protect her will transform not only R, but his fellow Dead, and perhaps their whole lifeless world.

I was interested in this book a long time before I actually got it. I love zombie books and have read many different kinds of zombie books. But this one had the most interesting premise by far. Mainly because not only is it a zombie romance but it is in the point of view of......a zombie.

First off, I was quite shocked to see how short this book was. At just over 200 pages, I expected to get through it quickly. This was not the case however. The book started off with our lead zombie, R, telling us, with surprising intelligence and innocence, about his extremely simple day-to-day life as a zombie. Which was hilarious. It's written so well with R just casually explaining in brilliant detail these absurd things that zombies do in their everyday life. We also find out that zombies can actually speak, to a degree, and form (exceptionally simple) relationships. They have no knowledge of who they were but do have a vague understanding of how the human race used to live. 

Later on in the book we meet Julie. And R starts to feel alien affections for her after devouring her boyfriend's brain (which can give zombies a glimpse of the persons life). Throughout the book, we have chapters with 'clips' of his life through R's eyes. All the way from his childhood to when he met Julie. This starts to give R extra knowledge and make him different from the rest of the zombies. 

Julie was an interesting character and I really liked her. She was rebellious and quirky, but also very intelligent. One problem I found with her though, was how easily she accepted R. One of the mindless monsters that the Living have feared and fought off her entire life, and after the initial shock at seeing her boyfriend and team eaten alive while she is taken back to their home, she seems completely cool about it. I don't know if this is just part of her character, but I found it quite strange. 

Another part of the book I found odd, was how human R was. I know that he was supposed to be different than the rest after what he experienced, but I personally found him too real and human. He just seemed to forget he was a zombie and that his soul purpose was to eat people. And with that, I started to lose interest in the book. I found it interesting and funny at the beginning, but it became quite slow-moving, and I couldn't really figure out where it was going, causing me to take a while to read it.

But in the end, it picked up and I got into it again. The ending was quite epic and hollywood in a good way, and I thought that it ended well. Other than it being a bit slow-moving and hard to believe (even though it's a zombie book, I know), I did quite enjoy it. It was really interesting and I recommend it if you're a zombie lover (no pun intended).

Review: The Body Finder

Title: The Body Finder

Author: Kimberly Derting

Published: 2010

Pages: 327

My Rating: 3/5

The Body Finder is one book that I've been wanting to read for a while. I'm glad that I've finally got it out of the way, but I'm not really sure what I actually think of the book. 

The concept intrigued me. A girl who has a special gift of finding dead - more specifically - murdered bodies. This seemed original when I first heard it, but then I read Numbers and My Soul to Take (where the lead girls can see someone's deathdate and sense when someone's going to die respectively) and it didn't seem so new. I think that is one of the reasons I couldn't get too invested into the character's lives and story. 

Every few chapters, there would be a chapter from the point of view of the serial killer. Who kidnaps and kills girls from inside and outside the local area where Violet (the main character) lives. These I found to be the most interesting and quite frankly disturbing chapters. As you get inside the head of this monster and follow him as he goes on the 'hunt', as he refers to it. 

The actual murder mystery was quite interesting. But not really unusual enough to make it stand out from other murder mysteries I've read about or watched on television. I also found that the suspense felt quite stilted as many of the chapters focused on the second plotline of Violet's and Jay's (her lifelong friend and now love interest) relationship.

If you are into YA romance, then you'd definitely like this book. But unfortunately, I've become tired of the typical romantic characters from YA books like this one. They were the usual; 'girl and boy have been friends since childhood and are now starting to feel things for each other'. Their relationship was painfully obvious and inevitable, that I felt like yelling at them to stop with the drama and just get together. This is what sadly took away from the suspense for me. I also found both of their characters extremely boring and uninteresting. There was nothing that I disliked about them, it was just that there was nothing to make them stand out from other characters similar to them that I've read about. 

But saying this, I did think that the plot was well thought out, with a few excellent little twists, and the writing was very well done, and clear to read. Unfortunately, I just found the bland characters and lack of originality to be a bit of a let down. 

I'm not very invested in this YA paranormal romance that is going around at the moment, as you can probably tell. But if you are interested it in, then I'd really recommend this book for you! Particularly , if you liked My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent or Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann.

Review of My Soul to Take

Title: My Soul to Take
Author: Rachel Vincent
Published: 2009
Pages: 345
My Rating: 3/5


She doesn't see dead people, but…
..She senses when someone near her is about to die.
And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder.
-Literally.
Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school.
But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about her need to scream than she does.
And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who'll be next…


My Review
I wasn't really sure if I was going to like this book, and to be honest, I'm still not sure if I really liked it. I had heard good things about it, and the concept really interested me. But when I came to starting it I became very skeptical as I'm not really one for Urban Fantasy. If you are interested in that however, I'm sure you'll love this!


The whole Banshee/ Reaper element was very interesting, and a nice change from Werewolves and Vampires. The issues they tackled concerning death was also a great new take on the Urban Fantasy genre. 


One thing that I noticed when reading this is that most of the book is split with either an exciting death premonition scene or talking scenes where we are a bit overloaded with information. As much as I found the information interesting; interesting wasn't enough to stop me getting bored at times. But on the opposite side, I found the death premonition scenes exciting, and the ending was certainly exciting with a good couple twists.


I liked the characters and some of the exciting twists, but overall, I was a little bit bored and don't think I like it enough to read the next one. If you are a fan of Urban Fantasy, however, I suggest you look into this book, it might be for you!