Braaaiiiiins!

Yes, I'm going to be writing about zombies. I've recently finished the book "World War Z: the oral history of the zombie war" by Max Brooks and it just blew me away. I'm not actually a big zombie fan (I'm more of a vampire girl), so I only read this because it was the book club choice for last month. I reluctantly picked it up, and then I couldn't put it down.

The books is the story of the survivors of the zombie apocalypse. It is really well-written and well-researched. I know, it may sound a little silly, research for a zombie book, but because of the nature of the book, research was key. The premise of the story is that the narrator is hired to write a report about the world's reaction to the zombie invasion. In order for the book to work as well as it did, Brooks really had to have a good understanding of how different cultures, religions and governments work. He needed to be able to capture how a Chinese peasant would react differently to an Israeli general or a South African politician. Without that understanding, the book would not have the power that it did.

I thought that Brooks really captured how different people would react, which made the book believable (an odd choice for a book about zombies, but there you are). I was immediately drawn into the story, and what I loved was that it seemed to be less about zombies than about how humans react in the face of disaster. This book could have been written about any world wide disaster. I really enjoyed how Brooks looked at the reactions of both the higher ups and the ordinary people. He allows the reader to really see how this disaster would affect EVERYONE. To me, that's important. If I'm going to see myself in a book (which is important to me), the characters need to be people I can relate to. This even goes for books as far out there as novels about zombies.

I really recommend this book, even for those who roll their eyes at the thought of a zombie book.