Jenn's Review: Married with Zombies

Summary:  A heartwarming tale of terror in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.

Meet Sarah and David.

Once upon a time they met and fell in love. But now they're on the verge of divorce and going to couples' counseling. On a routine trip to their counselor, they notice a few odd things - the lack of cars on the highway, the missing security guard, and the fact that their counselor, Dr. Kelly, is ripping out her previous client's throat.

Meet the Zombies.

Now, Sarah and David are fighting for survival in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. But, just because there are zombies, doesn't mean your other problems go away. If the zombies don't eat their brains, they might just kill each other.

Review:  This is a fast but amusing read about a couple on the rocks who get it together while fighting zombies together.  Sarah and David use the cheesy advice that Dr. Kelly has been doling out to help them fight their new issues, zombies wanting to eat their brains.  Nothing like the living dead to help you set aside your petty differences, right?

While I didn't find this as raucously funny as some reviewers, I still was chuckling to myself quite a bit -especially over the marital advice that describes each chapter, such as,

"Balance the workload in your relationship. No one person should be responsible for killing all the zombies."

And far more frightening then the zombies are the religious cults that pop up trying to amass more followers by force and fear.

Jesse Petersen has a fun website put together too with a marital quizzes (like How Long Would Your Relationship Last in a Zombie Apocalypse?), lists of what movie titles should have been zombie movies, etc.  It's definitely worth checking out.  You can also sample the first chapter of the book to see if you think you're ready to be Married with Zombies (first chapter link).

This story fits my twisted sense of humor, though as zombie books go I think Pride and Prejudice and Zombies may have been funnier because of the juxtaposition of the mash-up.  I will certainly continue to read Living with the Dead series for levity.  It makes a great summer beach read... if your warped like me.

Final Take:  3.5/5.0

Jenn's Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Summary:  "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." 

So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. 

What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. 

Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.

Review:  If Austen is sacred to you, I doubt you have picked up this book. Obviously, I'm not opposed to mash-ups or I wouldn't be reading this. I will explain my stance on the matter with a parallel, in no attempt to sway but solely as perspective for my review.

As a trained musician, I believe that what we do to Opera would be considered a crime by 19th century composers. Opera was the musical theatre of the day, only more so. It was meant for the lower classes and upper classes alike because it was in their native tongue and it was understood. It wasn't meant to be placed on a pedestal as a highbrow art form that is inaccessible to the masses. Is it an important part of the history of vocal music? Certainly, but it's not the be-all, end-all. I feel the same way about classic literature. I enjoy, it, I like to read it, but I don't believe it's meant to be on an alabaster altar, untouchable in it's perfection. [getting off soapbox]

However, this particular mash-up also requires a bit of a dark, twisted sense of humor:

"Penny's father, mad with grief, had thrown himself into a vat of boiling perfume. By the time his apprentices pulled him out, he had been badly disfigured and rendered blind. Doctors were unsure if he would survive, or if the stench would ever leave him." ~page 61

If the idea of Kill Bill meeting Looney Tunes being set in the early 19th century in the middle of a love story is abhorrent to you, perhaps this novel is not for you.  Frighteningly, it's like Seth Grahame-Smith lives in my head.

The zombie bits are dispersed throughout the novel in all the places where I found the original a little, well, sluggish. No, it isn't ultra-violent and gory, but it's got enough blood and guts to add a little excitement. Elizabeth is a trained warrior remember, so there are also times when she must defend her or her family's honor as well. (Picture the drawing room proposal between Elizabeth and Darcy coming to blows...)

A surprising amount of the dialogue is maintained. However, some of the additional dialogue cracked me up:

"...his intentions were respectable, for Darcy merely meant to retrieve his Brown Bess, which Elizabeth had affixed to her back during her walk. She remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to him. "Your balls, Mr. Darcy?" He reached out and closed her hand around them, and offered, "They belong to you, Miss Bennet." Upon this, their colour changed, and they were forced to look away from one another, lest they laugh." ~page 205

This was a good laugh and a great way to start the new year.  Does it replace the original? Never. Would you appreciate it if you haven't read Austen? I'm not sure.  Will I read more by Seth Grahame-Smith?  Absolutely!  Did it make me appreciate Pride and Prejudice more? Surprisingly, yes. It made me reflect on it with an affection deeper than I was aware I possessed.  Actually, I feel the need, maybe not to re-read, but perhaps to re-watch one of the movies again. Now if only I could choose which film version...

Final Take:  4.0/ 5.0

Jenn's Review: Infinity

Summary: At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he’s next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

Review: Infinity: Chronicles of Nick is the beginning of a YA series that serves as a prequel to Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter adult series. This is a great "guy" YA book, even for boys that aren't big Readers ~ not that girls won't like it too, but there's a lot of YA out there that boys won't like. I haven't read the Dark Hunter series, but this book this certainly piqued my interest.

The book was action packed from top to bottom. Kenyon is a master storyteller and keeps her reader's pulled in. There are a smattering of really interesting characters and lots of humor. Kenyon even tackles one of my least favorite plot lines, the time loop, and appears to do it well, I say appears to, because the series, thus far, is unfinished (perhaps someone who has read the Dark Hunter series could better say).

Because of all the action, I think it suffered somewhat in plot and character development. Where I think Kathy Reichs's transition to YA succeeds brilliantly, spinning off minor characters that she could develop, this book seems to falter. Kenyon seems to rely on the fact that these characters have already been developed in her adult series... (Giving her the benefit of the doubt that she is not assuming that writing YA means one doesn't need character development). There is a point in the middle of the book where the plot becomes somewhat muddled breaking away from the action with the rapid introduction of lots of new characters. While reading, I was almost resentful of the stoppage in action and the complication of the additional characters to the storyline. I almost feel as though Kenyon tipped more of her hand than needed at this point in the series, and that perhaps some of it could have been saved for later on when it was a bit less confusing. Once the action is resumed, however, we reach satisfying closure with enough loose ends to continue the series.

Fascinating though her characters are, I feel like I didn't really get to know any of them. I'm still not even sure who the good guys are, which is a lot like life ...and it just makes me want to read more! I look forward to the release of Book 2, Invincible, in February of 2011.

Final Take: 3.5/5

This review is brought to you today by the letter B... for Brittney at St. Martin's Griffin. Thanks for the book!