Review: If Zombieland were a YA novel with a teenage heroine...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 20, 2011
Ben White's "The Undying Apathy of Imogen Shroud" begins with an angsty, vaguely gothy, 17 year old girl suffering from a bout of depression due to a romantic betrayal (her girlfriend turned out to have used her to get a boyfriend.) She lives at home with her mother (a possible couch potato with a bad leg) and her 12 year old brother, Zach. She ventures out only to make her mother's minimum of leaving the house once a week, returning library books and visiting her grandfather, who is growing senile in a geriatric centre. One day her mother volunteers her to act as chaperon for Zach on a trip to the convention centre for a comic convention (her mother also specifies a trip to the job centre, a suggestion which is largely ignored.) Imogen and Zach get to the convention centre, tour the con a bit, then things go ... wrong. And then there were zombies. The book shifts from teen angst to survivalist terror as it follows Imogen's attempt to survive.White handles the interaction between siblings well; Imogen's mixture of irritation, teasing, name-calling, and possessive-caring attitude and Zach's adoration, whinging, inability to shut up, and childish priorities are all very believable, though I felt that his actions could be read as younger than 12 at times. Descriptions of locations, costumes, zombies are all excellent; you can visualise it clearly, though the convention centre is confusing in its layout (and this comes across both in description and character comments) - I couldn't map it out in my head. Fight scenes, too, are chaotic, but it leaves the appropriate impression in the reader's mind - an experience of the chaos of a fight.  Gore is ... well... gore; zombies being 1) undead and rotting 2) corpse eaters and 3) not known for hygiene or table manners, this was never going to be pretty. That said, the author keeps things just this side of nauseating.Now for the less delightful: there was a definite repetitive feel to the zombie attacks, so much so that I wound up skimming the longer attack sections, picking up on major changes or impacts. The formatting and font (please note: I read this converted on Calibre) felt designed to assault - hurling giant blocks of dense text. While that increased my awareness of the strain the characters were under,  and it definitely grips and doesn't let go, it also made the reading experience part of the zombie's assault. Not sure I can really criticise that exactly, but I feel it worth mentioning. The characters need more depth - they feel cartoony; 2 dimensional rather than fleshed out or real.  A lot of questions unanswered (significance of the monorail scene, particularly the weird rhythm Imogen hears; everything about the convention centre's weirdness; the question of the leg, etc.) though hopefully some sort of sequel will expound on these.Overall: 4 or 4.5 stars. I'm still oscillating - I almost decided on a 5 star rating, but the repetitiveness of the fight scenes really got to me. I really liked this enough to give it 5 stars, but the problems I've listed do make an impact on both the story's value. That said, it's a pretty fun ride if you enjoy the zombie genre.Update: 5 stars on Amazon as it's a steal at $2.99.Review copy supplied by the author as part of LibraryThing's Member Giveaway Program.