Review: A difficult review to write...
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 08 9, 2012
As zombie novels go, I have learned to generally overlook poor editing, bad syntax, and a plethora of misspellings-- so much so that I almost don't notice them anymore. This book didn't seem to have anything remarkable in that arena. In fact, I would say that the writing itself was generally above par for the genre. Which is why this is a difficult review to write. It isn't the writing that left me unsatisfied, but rather the story itself.When you're writing about the end of the world and the only likable character in the entire book is a dog, it makes it very hard to care about the fate of the human characters that have been so painstakingly drawn by the author. And therein lies my problem with this book. The main character is a drone, skating through life as an airport baggage handler and whose sole redeeming feature is that he cares for his Great Dane (although little else, as it turns out). He stumbles into rescuing his sister-in-law, herself trapped in a loveless marriage to the hero's brother-- a marriage sustained largely by money, ennui, and bouts of mutual cheating.These two misanthropes stagger from an apocalyptic frying pan into one fire and then into another, meeting survivors at every turn, each more unlikable than the last, until finally they themselves become as despicable as those who surround them. Ultimately, the zombies have a better-- or, at least, more understandable-- nature than our erstwhile hero and his companions.Along the way, we discover the reason for the rise of the zombies, which has nothing to do with any of the stereotypical reasons that most authors lay out. For this novel idea, I give the author props, although I found such a switch to the supernatural a tad disconcerting and the idea itself frankly preposterous.At the conclusion of the book however, when my only thought was "I hope the dog's okay," I am left to wonder if the author's point was that all mankind is so vile that we all deserve whatever horrible fate awaits us (and the more grisly, the better) as a sort of penance for the many sins we've committed in our lives and upon our world. If so, I suppose that's a valid thesis, but it hardly makes for an enjoyable read. At least, it didn't in my case. Two stars for the writing skill exhibited and the novel twist on zombie origins, but the apparent moral of the tale, like a zombie's dinner, left a bad taste in my mouth.