I have to admit, I don't really like reading stories about zombies. I like monsters, scary villains and I don't mind a bit of gore... but there's something about decaying, flesh eating corpses that turn me off. But when a teen guy at our library kept raving about World War Z, I thought I'd just take a peek.

World War Z is a collection interviews and first person accounts of a world wide human war against zombies. It's put together like a historical account, with a serious tone to make it as realistic as possible. Since it's a series of oral accounts from various people, the book doesn't read like your typical chronological novel where the plot is held together by a single narrator. This makes it a bit more choppy and I could see some readers getting bored with it at some point. I found myself randomly flipping to different sections of the book -- it's definitely not a thriller that had me biting my nails all the way through. If a reader is looking for a high octane zombie read, I'd suggest the Enemy series by Charlie Higson or Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry rather than World War Z. That said, I was actually impressed by the way the story is presented -- I thought I'd be laughing or dismissing the whole thing as melodramatic, but instead I found most of the chapters quite interesting. It had plenty of gory moments - but I didn't find this gratuitous or so repulsive I couldn't read on.  I liked the choice of perspectives included in the book: the organ harvester whose operations spread the zombie infection, the child whose parents tried to kill her to prevent the zombies from eating her, the Palestinian who believed it was all an Israeli conspiracy. Interestingly, it made me consider deeper themes like corruption, greed, politics and the different ways humans respond to threat and catastrophe. Yes -- all this from a fictional account the world being taken over by zombies! I wouldn't expect the typical teen reader to react the same way I did; I'd expect them to just think the whole zombie war idea is pretty cool (which it is).  The great thing is, these are real zombies: gross, terrifying lumps of rotting flesh that will eat your arm off -- not zombies that are portrayed as marginalized population that need to be included in your groupie at high school.

 This is definitely one I'll be recommending to teen guy readers, along with Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead and Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks. There are also plans to make World War Z into a movie in December 2012, so it's probably be a good idea to make sure you've got at least a couple copies of all three in your teen collection, as I'm sure the demand for them will only be increasing.

Why am I picking books that aren't new? Well, in this case, it could be considered a girl's book, what with it being written as the journal of a teenage girl. If it were a new book, lots of girls would be reading it now, and maybe a boy would rather not be caught reading something girls read. But don't worry, I'm not betraying the mandate of this here blog; this book has disasters aplenty, and not just the personal emotional kind.

A book I was really looking forward to after reading lots of good things about it on the web, with endorsements like "full of old-school vampires who would rather tear your throat out than kiss your face off" (from the Book Zone) or as the publisher puts it, "make a Darren Shan novel look like a romantic comedy", you've got to wonder what kind of book this is.
Jamie Carpenter was constantly reminded that his dad was a traitor to the country. He remembered the night they came for him and the menacing shadows in the tree. He resented his dad. It's because of him that he and his mom had to keep moving to get away from the gossip. Somehow each town they stop had a way of finding out.
Then one night on his way home, he's attacked by a girl of inhuman speed. It's obvious that this girl could kill him pretty effortlessly, but she hesitated, and that's when Jamie got rescued by a large man who introduced himself as Frankenstein. When they got back home, his mother was gone. Kidnapped. Jamie wanted nothing more than to go find his mom, but Frankenstein forced him into the car and drove him to Department Nineteen, a top secret government agency that specialized in the supernatural, and Jamie found out that his father used to work here, and someone wants revenge and payback and is going to hunt Jamie down till he gets it.
A non-stop action book, with an abundance of gore and some pretty disturbing scenes. A lot of interesting details, especially when it flashes back to the story of Van Helsing and Stoker and the first Dracula, and how Department 19 was created in the first place. Those gothic scenes were great.  Love the old-school vampires. What a relief from you-know-what!  Love the stakes and the weapons the guys carry. It makes me feel like watching From Dusk Till Dawn again. I also like the slow transition of Jamie from being completely helpless and clueless to taking matters into his own hands.  Somewhat predictable plot-wise, but it didn't really take away from the enjoyment of the book. And what a cover! Love it!