How to End the Zombie Apocalypse? Love.

Nora Haggerty

Warm Bodies

By Isaac Marion

Would you be able to find a will to live if the world you knew was plagued with a disease that allowed the dead to thrive? In Warm Bodies, the zombie apocalypse has taken over society and it is the job of the last surviving people to continue civilization. The story is told from the perspective of a younger zombie, named R. He lives a monotonous life in what used to be an airport but is now zombie central. Zombie activities include grunting, walking around aimlessly, and hunting through cities to find people to eat. On one of these expeditions, R and some fellow zombies stumble upon a group of living teenagers that are out on an organized trip to kill zombies. When zombies eat brains, they are put into their victim’s memories where they get to experience life for several fleeting moments. While most of the zombies quickly ravage through the living people, killing them and eating them, without a second thought, R has some hesitations. He enjoys the feeling of having memories, but does not exactly enjoy the killing part. On this trip, R meets a girl named Julie, whom he feels the need to protect. Despite her immense confusion, Julie goes back to the airport with R so she doesn’t get killed. Julie finds a way to trust R and the pair become very close over the course of several days. Their interesting connection inspires a change in R that has further impacts in the zombie community.

Unless you enjoy cliche zombie romances, I wouldn’t recommend this book to you. Though Isaac Marion’s writing is not terrible, I did not find the story particularly engaging, especially the second half. The book was like a watered down, apocalyptic spin on the classic Romeo and Juliet - two separated worlds where members of each have intense hatred for members of the other. When I picked the book off of the shelf, I was expecting less romance and more thrilling zombie narrative. Marion insinuates that the love between R and Julie is what brings the two worlds together, and is essentially the cure to to the zombie plague.

The relationship between the two main characters is at some points uncomfortable to read, after the reader is reminded that R is actually dead. For example, as the pair heads back to the stadium where the people who have survived the apocalypse stay, they had to stay a night in Julie’s old house. Julie invites R to sleep in the same bed as her saying “I was just thinking. The bed’s a king-size. So I guess, if you wanted to... I wouldn't care if you joined me in there…” (90). The two are clearly starting to fall for each other but their romance seems out of place as Julie’s boyfriend was (spoiler alert) eaten a few days earlier, and R is not alive.  R and Julie even find that they have the same taste in music which brings them closer together. Though realistic is not a word that can be used to describe any book revolving around zombies, even in the Warm Bodies world, their predictable romance alone did not seem to fit in with everything going on around them.

Another part of the story that I felt took away from some of the overarching themes is R’s sudden character development. In the beginning, though there were some hints of discontent, he seemed to accept the way the world was, getting a wife and adopting zombie children as most other male zombies did in the book. He grunted and walked around like all the others. As soon as he met Julie, his thoughts were more coherent and he had an epiphany saying, “I don't want to die. I don't want to disappear. I want to stay” (64). I feel as though if he had evolved more over time instead of so suddenly, his development could have been more significant and it could have shown that other zombies could do the same, even without meeting a girl and falling in love. Julie’s immediate forgiveness toward R after she realized he was the one who ate her boyfriend, did not help in developing R’s character smoothly either.

Something I found interesting about Warm Bodies was how applicable some of the ideas were to modern day society despite being published five years ago. There are messages about how society should be more accepting of everyone and understand that people change. Julie wholeheartedly defends R when he is confronted by her dad, who is in charge of the efforts to rid the world of zombies. She says, “R is different. He’s changing.” (198) and even stabs her father when he tries to shoot R in the brain - an act that would kill him for good. Julie saw the good in R and realized that he wanted to be better, and also saw how the change could spread through the zombie world. They both had the mutual goal of making the world a better place and influencing others to bring the two sides together.

The concept of Warm Bodies is what pushed me to read it, however, after getting through about half of it, I stopped enjoying reading it and just wanted to get it over with. If you like cliche fantasy romances then you may enjoy this book, but I felt that there was nothing that stood out as powerful to me, which I usually look for in books.