Warm Bodies is the first novel by Isaac Marion. [Here’s my review of the film adaptation.]
Finished on: 17.2.2015

Plot:
The zombie apocalypse has happened. R is a zombie who can’t remember much – not even his entire name – and spends most of his time shuffling around an empty airport. But all of that changes when he meets Julie during a hunt. Julie is one of the few survivors. And while R munches on Julie’s boyfriend Perry, he falls in love with her. He brings her home and Julie slowly realizes that maybe not all zombies are the monsters she thought they were. And their connection sparks a new development that is much bigger than the two of them.

Warm Bodies is one of the few instances where I read the book after having seen the film that’s based on it (I usually try to do it the other way round), and I was surprised by how little the two are alike in tone, even if a lot of the plot is the same. And to be honest, I missed the film’s sense of humor.

Warm Bodies is a serious book (well, as serious as a zombie romance can be), which is probably what makes it so different from the film (or the film so different from the book) and I appreciated the movie’s light-heartedness a little more than the book’s earnestness, especially since I didn’t care much for R’s inner monologue.

I also appreciated Julia’s movie!father more than her book!father, who remained flat and one-note – I would have liked a little more characterization there. The same goes for Julia, btw. While she does get a little more back story in the book, it somehow transforms her into more of a stereotype. It’s the typical mistake of confusing dramatic backstory with complex backstory.

About the book, I liked that it has a lot more world to it that we get to experience in-depth and that was very interesting, in particular everything around the stadium – what an excellent idea, btw. Also Perry is much more fleshed out and the book made me more curious about him – I wish that I had gotten even more. And as much as I appreciated Analeigh Tipton in the movie, I was rather dismayed to discover that her character was whitewashed: book!Nora is black – and the whitewashing ruined Tipton’s role in hindsight, at least a little [even though the sassy best friend isn’t necessarily a role that I wish yet another black woman to have].

But, before this dissolves into just a comparison between the two, I have to say that I was a little disappointed and a little bored by the book in general. I thought that it was just a tad pretentious and it too often coped out of things, especially explanations, with R’s lack of memory and knowledge. I really loved the Boneys, but I wanted some kind of explanation for them and their hold on the rest of the zombies.

I was not sad or disappointed when the book ended. I just thought that I’d rather watch the film again. Maybe I’ll do that soon.

Summarizing: Meh.