CBR16 Book 14: "Illuminae" by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Page count: 602 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo: An epistolary novel

CBR16 Sweet Books: Binge (I have already bought the next two books in the series in paperback, so I can read all of them as soon as possible.)

Official book description:

Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the worst thing she'd ever been through. That was before her planet was invaded. Now, with enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra are forced to fight their way onto one of the evacuating craft, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But the warship could be the least of their problems. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their biggest threat; and nobody in charge will say what's really going on. As Kady plunges into a web of data hacking to get to the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: Ezra.

Kady is a talented hacker and is fully aware that the evacuated passengers aren't being told much of anything. She is determined to find out the truth of what is going on, especially after the AI of the leading evacuation ship, AIDAN, blows one of the other two up unexpectedly. Naturally, the remaining ship's crew are rather nervous about the incident being repeated and the AI needs to be shut down until they can figure out why it acted so erratically. Ezra is recruited as a fighter pilot, working to defend the evacuation fleet, not exactly a job without significant risks.

As Kady becomes more and more isolated, and the losses really start affecting her, her illegal communication with Ezra becomes one of the things that keep her going. Neither of them has anyone else significant left in their lives, and it becomes clear that the reasons why Kady dumped Ezra in the first place become very insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and now they would just like to be reunited, before they quite possibly die. 

As the back of the book says, the novel is "Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more". I am very glad I got the paperback from the library, I'm genuinely not sure how in the world this book would work in audio, and I don't think I would have found it as engrossing a read on an e-reader screen. There were sections where I literally had to keep turning the book sideways or on its head to be able to read everything. It's a very interesting take on the epistolary format. 

I can absolutely see why this book wouldn't be a 5-star read for some people. It was a bit slow to catch my interest in the beginning, but since it's not divided into chapters like a traditional book, but interview transcripts, memos, chat logs, and the like, it's very easy to get tempted to read just a little bit more, since each individual section is so short. Once things really started escalating, I had trouble putting the book down. I stayed up until far too late o'clock on a work night just to finish it (and had to actually peek at the ending about halfway through the book because all the tension was going to kill me if I didn't know how it all turned out). So to me, this was a five-star read, even though some of the characterisation probably could have been deeper, and parts of the book were pure horror, and really upsettingly graphic when it came to the violence perpetrated by those afflicted with the virus. 

I have now bought this book for my keeper shelf, along with the two sequels, if they're even half as gripping as this one, I want physical copies of them for my very own. Also, having read the first one in a physical format, I'm not even sure it would be possible to get all the necessary information if you read them as an e-book or listened to it in audio. 

Judging a book by its cover: The reds and oranges are very eye-catching and I'm not entirely sure what the cover is supposed to show, but I think it might be a firestorm, suggesting either the original attack on Kady and Ezra's home world or the subsequent explosion of one of the evacuation ships. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 47: "Jingo" by Terry Pratchett

Page count: 414 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: Politics (the word is used 18 times over the course of the novel)

Official book description:

It isn't much of an island that rises up one moonless night from the depths of the Circle Sea -- just a few square miles of silt and some old ruins. Unfortunately, the historically disputed lump of land called Leshp is once again floating directly between Ankh-Morpork and the city of Al-Khali on the coast of Klatch -- which is spark enough to ignite that glorious international pastime called "war." Pressed into patriotic service, Commander Sam Vimes thinks he should be leading his loyal watchmen, female watch-dwarf, and lady werewolf into battle against local malefactors rather than against uncomfortably well-armed strangers in the Klatchian desert. But war is, after all, simply the greatest of all crimes -- and it's Sir Samuel's sworn duty to seek out criminal masterminds wherever they may be hiding...and lock them away before they can do any real damage. Even the ones on his own side.

Terry Pratchett was a genius. I don't really think that many people who know about his long career, even people who have never even read his books, would dispute that. What started out as tongue-in-cheek parodies of classical fantasy tropes in the early Discworld novels soon became something more and deeper and much more clever than anyone had expected it to be. In total (when including his middle grade books The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents and the Tiffany Aching books), there are 41 Discworld novels. There's also a number of spin-off books, like The Science of Discworld, The Folklore of Discworld, cook books, diaries, you name it. 

In the latter half of the series (this book is nr 21 of 41), a lot of the already well-written and entertaining books start to become somewhat sharper and more satirical. Pratchett used his incredibly popular authorial voice to highlight and criticise a lot of modern society, and in this book, the thing he is both angry about and wants to highlight is the absolute absurdity of most international conflicts and wars breaking out at the drop of a hat, usually because the other people (who are different from us and foreign and suspect and threatening) have in their possession that our country wants, or vice versa. 

In this book, Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is trying to solve a murder and prevent an international crisis, and subsequent war with Klatch (think any Middle Eastern country or culture you can imagine). Suddenly, all the Klatchians who have been living and working hard in the city are seen as suspect and threatening and a fervour of patriotism is rising among the nobility. War seems to be right around the corner, and it seems like it would be good to ease the tensions between the two nations before actual fighting breaks out.

The City Watch novels are the subsection of Discworld novels that on the surface read as police procedurals. Even this book, that covers geo-political conflict, has a murder mystery at its core. With each subsequent Watch book, Samuel Vimes reluctantly seems to rise in social status, and he also seems to be getting angrier, with good reason. The further up in society he rises, the more he finds to be absolutely furious about. 

I enjoyed the other two Watch novels I re-read recently, but Jingo is a step up, in general. The only reason I'm not giving it a full five stars is because I know there are later books in the series that are even better, and I have to save the top rating for them. This is absolutely not the best book in the series to start with, but once you're more familiar with Pratchett and the Discworld, it's one of the books that shouldn't be missed. 

Judging a book by its cover: The Josh Kirby covers are always quite busy, with a lot of details. I like the shades of green on this one. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR15 Book 5: "The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy" by Megan Bannen

Page count: 453 pages

Rating: 5 stars

CBR Passport Challenge: New to Me author

In a world very unlike our own, most people live on islands and when people die, they are not buried in coffins, but rather placed in boats and sent out to sea (like when we bury someone in the ground) or the boats are cremated. So undertakers don't just need to know the rituals of cleaning and treating a body, there are rituals to follow and sacred words to be spoken - but they need to be able to work wood and construct a variety of different boats for the deceased. Additionally, most people have a key around their necks from birth until death, and once they die - the keys of their departed loved ones are placed on a family altar and revered or at least kept safe in the keeping of their families. 

There is also an enclosed wilderness called Tanria, where once the Old Gods were imprisoned and now contain enough precious resources that people still risk their lives to go there. Marshalls have to patrol the area because drudges, zombie-like creatures inhabited by the souls of those who have previously died in Tanria attack new people when the corpse-shell they're inhabiting is too rotted to be of use are a danger to anyone foolish enough to venture into the area. Being a Marshall is a demanding and dangerous job, but Hart Ralston has been doing it alone for a long time and fools himself that he's happy in his solitude. He's very annoyed when his supervisor forces him to take on an apprentice, but the enthusiastic young man soon grows on him, despite Hart's attempts to stay impersonal and distant.

There are very few people of note in Hart's life. He's a demi-god, his father was one of the many New Gods who once roamed the world, although Hart has never discovered exactly what god fathered him (his Mum claimed he was called Jeff). One of the gifts he was granted is the ability to actually see the souls of the departed. Very useful when killing drudges, as he can ensure the soul has definitely left the body. Now, with both his mother and his de-facto father figure, the Marshall who trained Hart from he was sixteen, dead, Hart pretty much only has his former partner, now his supervisor and her wife as friends and due to a heated disagreement some years before, he doesn't really feel like he can rely on his supervisor either. 

Hart also has a nemesis, a person who riles him up like no other. Mercy Birdsall, the woman who seems to be single-handedly running the struggling undertaking business of "Birdsall and Sons" after her father had a heart attack the year before (the son in question seems a lot more interested in cooking and baking than taking care of dead bodies) for some reason brings out the worst in him, every time. Every time Hart has to deliver a body to her business (an occurrence happening a lot more often since the drudge problem in Tanria seems to be worsening), they snipe at each other and trade vicious insults. 

One evening, after a particularly bad argument with Mercy, Hart starts writing a letter, pouring out some of his sadness and loneliness to an anonymous "friend". He feels better after confessing some of his emotions and posts the letter, but never expects a reply, as it's not actually addressed to anyone in particular. So imagine his surprise when about a week later, he receives a reply from "a friend", who also seems to be lonely and all too happy to share their similar feelings of loneliness. Now it doesn't take a genius to realise who the mystery correspondent is, but it takes months of exchanging letters and becoming closer and fond of one another before Hart discovers that his anonymous pen pal is none other than Mercy Birdsall, and of course, he's been in love with her for years already (his partner finds the whole situation both hilarious and tragic). Of course, Hart refuses to tell Mercy that he is her "friend" in return, which only gets more complicated once they leave their animosity behind and start falling for each other for real.

This was such a strange book. The world-building is very unusual, the characters are all rich and interesting, even fairly minor supporting ones who you don't really need to suspect have complex inner lives. In parts, it's sweet and romantic, in other parts it's gory and rather terrifying. Anyone who feels squeamish about corpses should probably give this book a miss. It has the You've Got Mail thing of two feuding enemies falling for one another over time in anonymous correspondence, and unfortunately that section of the plot where one of them has discovered the identity of the other, but for REASONS can't bring themselves to confess the truth, and the tension just keeps building and you know the reveal is going to be awful and your beloved characters are going to suffer (interestingly, in the movie You've Got Mail, I don't care one jot if the protagonists suffer because I'm so disgusted with them both committing emotional adultery towards their current partners). 

This book also doesn't underestimate the intelligence of its readers. You are not given a heavy info dump in the early chapters, giving you all the facts you need to understand how the world works, how the religion factors in, why people act the way they do and so forth. The relevant information is revealed when the reader needs it and they have to piece together the little snippets of knowledge to make up a bigger whole as the story progresses. As I've tried to explain in the plot summary, without spoiling too much, the world building and overall plot of the book is rather complex. There's a lot more to the story than two enemies finding each other through anonymous letters. What exactly is Tanria? Why are people so keen to keep going there, even though they might very likely be killed by drudges? How are the drudges possessed by the souls of the dead, and why are there suddenly so many more drudges appearing? Where are all these extra corpses in Tanria coming from? What's the story of the Old and the New Gods? How come some people are demi-gods and how are they different from the rest of the population? Why do Hart and Mercy hate each other so much? Why was Hart's unaddressed letter sent to Mercy in the first place?

The characters of the story, are as I mentioned, all interesting and fully fleshed out, even when they only appear in a few scenes. Mercy's family members are chaotic and lovely, and it's not cruelty or neglect that make them oblivious to her struggles at keeping the undertaking business from going under. Hart starts the book as an ornery and rather selfish person, but let's just say his heart grows a bunch of sizes after he is forced to first take on a bubbly apprentice and grows very fond of him, and then has to come to terms with his feelings for Mercy and their troubled past together. He also has to do a lot of reflecting on his relationship both with his dead partner who trained him and acted as the only father he ever knew, and the now strained relationship with his ex-partner and see if fences can be mended, despite the harsh words that were exchanged years ago. Then there's the whole issue of his real father. Does being a demigod mean that Hart is immortal (a lot of demi-gods aren't)? He certainly seems to heal very quickly from even really serious injuries. 

This book may not be for everyone, but for me, it was pretty much perfection. It offered up something different from your general paranormal fantasy (this one doesn't really fit into 'urban' fantasy, as any of the settlements in this world are rather small and separate from the others), it had a fun premise, great characters, it made me laugh, cringe and towards the end, almost ugly-cry. Books that make me feel that many things deserve five stars. As far as I can tell, this is the first non-YA novel that Megan Bannen has written. I'm going to have to seek out her two YA books now, to see if they're as creative and well-written as this one. I also hope that there may be more books coming about Hart and Mercy, since Goodreads lists this as the first in a series. I would love to read more from this world and about these lovely people. 

Judging a book by its cover: I'm not sure why the cover design and colour choices made me think this was a YA novel, but it really did. I love teal, so any book in that colour is likely to catch my eye, and the bright pink (which also seems to be on the spine) brings a bright splash to the centre of the cover. I love the contrast between the golden lines and flowers, and the naked, skeletal bones. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 82: "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War" by Max Brooks

Page count: 352 pages

Audio book length: 12 hrs 9 mins

Rating: 4.5 stars

Official book description:

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Most of all, the audiobook captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the listener, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”

As it's getting harder for me to find the motivation and time to read (and review) coupled with the fact that I'm getting older and more set in my ways, I have a tendency to pick up only books I'm pretty sure I'm going to like, and rarely move out of my comfort zone. I've also gotten better about just giving up on books that just aren't working for me. This year, that was The Three-Body Problem, seriously, after a third of the book, I gave up, read the Wikipedia summary, which was just as boring and confusing to me as the book had been, and concluded that I'm just never going to read that book. One consequence of only picking books in my "safe zone" is that it gets harder for me to pick my worst of the year, as I rarely finish and review books I truly loathe anymore. Another consequence, of course, is that I rarely get properly surprised. 

One exception to this comes from my book club selections. There's obviously the Cannonball Read book club, and also my fantasy/sci-fi club, which meets the first Wednesday of every month (sadly only on-screen now, with corona restrictions). Not all of the books of the month are books I would have picked up on my own (this is also why I've read part of, but not finished the aforementioned The Three-Body Problem). Our book pick for October (to be discussed in November) was this, World War Z. The book is not exactly new,  so I'd heard about it, but never read it - because I really am not a big fan of zombies. The fact that the movie adaptation was supposed to be dire didn't exactly make me more excited about it.

Still, I try to show up prepared and like to have read at least part of the books in question. Another member recommended the all-cast audiobook (telling me to make sure I got the full text, not the abridged version), so I got it on Audible. Within only a few chapters, I was utterly engrossed and found myself listening to the book every chance I got. This book was such a wonderful surprise because I'd thought I would suffer through it, getting squicked out by horror and gore, and instead found myself fascinated by the way the story is told and the way Max Brooks (who I also had no idea was the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft until I read up a bit about him) structures his narrative. I will be very surprised if this book isn't on my top 10 of the year - something I wouldn't have believed before I picked it up. 

I have a Masters Degree in history, and for much of my university courses, I specialised in medieval history and particularly social history at that. I really am not all that bothered about battles, politics, various heads of state, and the like, give me the nitty-gritty of how people lived and all of these big events impacted on regular people, and I will eat it up. So a book chronicling the aftermath of what is known as the zombie wars, where we hear from ex-soldiers, scientists, politicians, regular people and so forth all over the world, which in itself was very refreshing. There is no singular focus on America and Americans here, but "witness accounts" from every part of the globe, even Antarctica, and even features interviews with ex-astronauts. The book covers part of the actual war, but also a lot of the aftermath, and the changes the zombie outbreak caused to society, including social, political, religious, environmental, and financial developments. 

As with Station Eleven, which was certainly a strange book to reread during a global pandemic, a book where the various government powers are criticised for their shortsightedness and how ill-prepared they are to handle a global crisis also took on unexpected additional relevancy now - with the death toll from Covid-19 still rising steadily, especially in the USA. The book was picked for our book club long before we knew what this year was going to look like, so as with Station Eleven, it was just one of those strange coincidences.

I'm really glad that I turned out to be wrong about this book, and my fellow book club member who recommended the full cast version was not wrong. It's an excellent way to listen to the book, and it makes the fates of the various people we meet seem all the more realistic, as you hear them not through the voice of one narrator, but as if you were listening to actual interview recordings. The voice cast is very star studded (go to Wikipedia to see the full list) and I had fun trying to identify some of the actors taking part.

This book should stand as a reminder to me that it's important that I still read outside of my comfort zone occasionally and that I try genres and books that I think are going to be difficult to read or that might make me uncomfortable because occasionally I discover a new favourite - and that's never a bad thing. 

Judging a book by its cover: I've got to admit, the rather plain and unremarkable cover of this book is one of the reasons I've never really bothered to give the book much of a second look. It's not exactly inviting, in shades of muddy brown, with only the plain title on the cover. Doesn't look too riveting, does it?

Crossposted by Cannonball Read. 

#CBR6 Book 10: "The Girl with All the Gifts" by M.R. Carey

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

I'm actually going to use the Goodreads summary of this, because it's what made me want to read the book in the first place:

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her "our little genius".

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. 

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad. 

I don't usually read horror, but I made an exception for this book, because the blurb made it sound so very intriguing and because I'm a huge fan of Mike Carey's other work. I can only assume he's writing under a new name because this is a different genre from the work he normally produces.

This was such a great book. It's told mainly from the point of view of Melanie, although the pop culture literate reader knows a lot more about the girl, her little school friends and their situation than the girl herself does, genius level IQ or not. Of course, having no real recollection of anything outside the cell where she lives, the school room and the weekly routines she experiences, it's not as if Melanie can be aware of her real situation. She's quickly draws new conclusions based on every additional piece of information she is given.

There aren't that many characters in the book. There are some chapters from the points of view of Miss Justineau, Helen, Melanie's favourite teacher, who is also a behavioural psychologist and there to observe the very special children and assist Dr. Caldwell in her research. She knows that she shouldn't get attached to her pupils, or invested in their futures, as none of them are likely to face a promising one.

Doctor Caroline Caldwell is driven to prove to the world at large that it was wrong that she was passed over when advanced research teams were sent out to find a cure for the rapidly spreading fungal infection turning people into mindless, hungry beast, and destroying civilisation as we know it. She has no scruples using any and all tools at her disposal to further her research.

Sergeant Eddie Parks and Private Kieran Gallagher are parts of the military personnel stationed at the research base to keep the scientists secure. They make sure the children are securely brought to class every day, to the shower rooms once a week, and to their weekly feedings. When all hell breaks loose, and the base is attacked, changing everything, these two soldiers need to assist in keeping the other three safe and get them back to any kind of secure location.

My main complaint with the book is probably that only Melanie and Helen Justineau really get fleshed out properly as characters. Caldwell, Parks and Gallagher are just a step or two up from stock characters - the evil scientist, the gruff commander, the naive and inexperienced rookie. Yet the story is so compelling, and Melanie and Helen are such wonderful characters that it doesn't detract much from my enjoyment of the book. Melanie's journey of self discovery and self realisation, the really very skillful depictions of the dystopian future after an apocalypse and the strong bonds of love that develop between Melanie and her beloved teacher are what makes it especially good. I suspect this is a book I'm going to be thinking back to for months to come.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR5 Book 23. "Warm Bodies" by Isaac Marion

Page count: 356 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Meet R. He's a zombie. He can't remember the rest of his name, or even who he used to be, but it was someone who died wearing a suit and tie. He spends his days, along with countless other zombies, shuffling along in an abandoned airport. Every so often, he and his fellow zombies will shuffle into the city to find food, eating some of the desperate survivors hiding out in boarded up buildings. They eat the flesh, but the brains are the best part, as they allow the zombies a brief moment to relive the memories of the person whose brain it is.

R is a bit different from the other zombies at the airport. He keeps collecting things he finds when they're out hunting for food. Little trinkets he brings back to the 747 he's made his home. He likes to listen to music. He prefers vinyl because the sound is purer. One day, when he, his friend M, and a bunch of others are out hunting for food, R eats the brain of a young man called Perry, and when M tries to kill Perry's girlfriend Julie, R stops him. He finds himself inexplicably drawn to Julie, and takes her home with him to the airport.

Julie is understandably terrified, but quickly discovers that R really is different from the zombies she's been taught to fear. He promises to keep her safe, and saves her life more than once. He also seems to get more articulate the more time they spend together. Is it possible that zombies can be cured. Can they reclaim their humanity and give up their grisly diet of human flesh and brains? Will Julie be able to convince her father, the zombie-hating General Grigio, that R is not just a mindless killing machine?

This is my second attempt at reading a book featuring zombie romance. I'm still rather uncomfortable with the idea. I really loved the movie Warm Bodies, and Nicholas Hoult's (I'm still baffled by how handsome the funny-looking kid from About a Boy turned out) excellent performance as R the zombie mostly made me forget that he was an undead putrefying corpse who survived by consuming brains, and that he was falling in love with the girl whose boyfriend he KILLED and ATE. At least Angel in My Life as a White Trash Zombie only ate the brains of already dead people she found in the morgue. R actually kills and eats people. It's not his fault, he has to, to survive - but it's not particularly attractive in a guy. And no, I don't know why I can forgive and find Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries so attractive, when he's a blood-thirsty vampire. I'm suspect it's the rotting flesh aspect that makes me more prejudiced against zombies.

 I also suspect I would have liked the book more if I hadn't seen the film version first. All through the book, I kept comparing the film and the book, and the book kept coming up short, every time. The book isn't bad, at all, and I really like the idea that there is no explanation as to why the zombie plague started in the first place, or any deus ex machina that triggers the cure in some of the zombies. I guess I just thought the film was funnier, and a bit more romantic, and took the potential that was in the book and turned it into something even better.

Disclaimer - I recieved a free copy of this book from Random House, via NetGalley.

CBR4 Book 100: "My Life as a White Trash Zombie" by Diana Rowland

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Date begun: November 15th, 2012
Date finished: November 17th, 2012

So it's no secret that pretty much all I read consists of genre fiction, mostly paranormal fantasy, or romance (sometimes either of those genres aimed at young adults) or a mix of all of the above. So Felicia Day's Vaginal Fantasy Hangout was pretty much made for someone like me. Now, for most of the time the group has been running, I've read at least one, if not both of the books featured as Reads of the Month. However, this month (November), they feature zombie books, with at least a bit of a romantic element to them.

I'm not going to lie, I've read books with vampires, werewolves, all sorts of other kinds of shapeshifters (including dinosaurs, so thanks, VFH ladies!), ghosts, demons, angels, fairies, dark elves, you name it - I've probably read some variation of fantasy/romance where this was a feature. Until now, I'd drawn the line at zombies, however. My husband reads, and watches The Walking Dead, and I've caught the occasional episode. I watched Shaun of the Dead. I don't like horror, though, in any genre, so zombies tend to be something I avoid. I certainly don't see it as a successful starting point for anything with romantic elements. Clearly popular culture disagrees with me, though, as Warm Bodies was a huge publishing success and now looks like it's going to be a really rather entertaining film.

One of the reasons I join online book clubs, and browse review sites, and book blogs and participate in the Cannonball Read is to discover new things. So while I was initially reluctant, I decided to give zombie fantasy a try. My Life as a White Trash Zombie is the story of Angel Crawford, who wakes up in the hospital after what appears to be a drug overdose. She was apparently found stark naked on the side of the highway, on the same night as there was an accident not too far away, and the driver of the car was found decapitated. With the head missing from the scene of the crime. Angel has no memory at all of how any of this came to pass, but is relieved that the police only question her, as a drug overdose is in violation of her parole.

She's given a bag of clothes and a letter from one of the nurses, where she's told to show up at the parish morgue for a new job, and she has to hold down the job for at least a month, or the police will be told about her OD, and she'll end up in jail. She's also given 6 bottles of some mysterious liquid, and told to drink one every other day. The letter also states that if she were to end up in prison, she'd be dead before long, so Angel is too scared to refuse the job offer.

At the morgue, she discovers that she's not only expected to drive a van and pick up corpses, she's also meant to help the morgue technicians with autopsies. Previously, Angel's not been able to see anything even vaguely gory without throwing up, but she now seems to be able to handle all sorts of disgusting smells and sights without so much as a dry heave. Strangest of all, the sight and smell of dead brains seem to drive her wild. Before long, Angel realises that she actually kind of likes her job, and wants to prove that she can stick with something, no matter what her deadbeat on again off again drug addict boyfriend or drunken father says. She just needs to figure out why she has an unnatural craving for brains, why dead bodies keep showing up decapitated, and who got her the job at the morgue in the first place?

For the first couple of chapters, I wasn't sure about Angel as a protagonist, and her no ambition deadbeat attitude. By the time she starts her job at the morgue, I was starting to warm up to her, and I'm very glad that I kept going with the book, as it turned out to be both a fairly exciting page turner, and lots of fun. Once Angel gets developed more as a character, and starts building her self esteem and accomplishing things, I really enjoyed her and her rather snarky wit. I wish she'd wised up about her abusive, drunken asshole of a dad, and extreme loser boyfriend sooner, but we can't have everything, now can we?

The way zombies are portrayed in the book is also really well done. Angel can pretty much survive any injury or damage as long as she ingests enough brains, and while she no longer feels the effects of pills or pot, she can eat human food as well, so long as she consumes brains every other day or so. The more energy she expends, the more often she has to have a brainy snack. Her job at the morgue is obviously perfect, and once she faces up to the fact that she's now the walking undead, she tries to research her "condition" as best she can, and gets on with things without complaining.

There's some pretty cool supporting characters as well (not the drunken dad or pothead boyfriend), and a subplot involving Angel's continued crush on one of the deputies who arrested her a while back. The book is not a romance, as such, but it looks like the romance angle might be stronger in the sequel (which I'm now pretty excited to read). So I still haven't had to face an actual main story romance where one or both of the characters is a zombie, and guess that'll have to be next on my list.