Eat Brains Love

At the beginning of the day, Jake and Amanda could not have been further apart. At the same high school, they are part of vastly different groups: Jake with the burnout stoner crowd and Amanda with the popular crowd. Then the playing field is leveled when they are both attacked by and turn into zombies. After eating a bunch of their friends and classmates, they escape the carnage together and try to survive. The media says they shot up the school, but are in custody, so they have no idea what's going on. On the other side of things, Cass is a telepath working for the government in the Necrotic Control Division to contain zombie outbreaks. This isn't her first rodeo and, despite her young age, she is one of the most powerful telepaths they have.  Her interaction with Jake and Amanda have her suddenly wondering if maybe zombies don't deserve to be hunted down and killed. Unfortunately, the leader of her organization has other plans.

I liked the slightly different lore than usual in Eat Brains Love. This zombie virus is a sexually transmitted disease, so a bite, no matter how bad, will just hurt.These zombies are not brainless all the time. When well fed, they are perfectly normal people with working systems and beating hearts. When extremely hungry, they turn into the zombies we are used to: shambling, brain hungry monsters. They have no control over their actions until they return to their well fed state. These changes added a lot to the story, especially because one of the narrators was capable of thought and speech. There is quite a bit of zombie carnage, but it doesn't generally disrupt the light tone of the novel.

I enjoyed Jake's narrative the most because of his budding and sweet relationship with Amanda and the excitement of their journey. I also found him likable and really sweet despite his slacker/stoner attitude. He feels really bad about the people he killed, but he accepts that's just how things are now. He tries to make the best of it with Amanda and their evolving relationship is my favorite part of the story. Cass is an interesting character with telepathy, but I found her narrative less compelling. The telepathy was pushing it for my suspension of disbelief, but it didn't bother me that much in the long run. Her story is less light with a government agency headed by an unscrupulous person who doesn't think twice about using people. She started to realize that full zombies are just like regular people, but then was shocked when they ate people still to stave off hunger. I thought she was a bit naive and annoying, especially when she became infatuated with Jake after seeing into his head so much like a creepy stalker.

Eat Brains Love is a cute, fun zombie novel. The different zombies and the love story sets this apart from other zombie novel. There's nothing revolutionary here, but I would definitely read the next in the series, Undead with Benefits.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Zombie Songs

More tunes about the living dead!

1) Zombie Delight - Buck 65

This song isn't my favorite style, but the lyrics provide invaluable information during a zombie apocalypse. Don't drink contaminated water. Important during an apocalypse situation. Don't reason with zombies. This may be obvious, but so many people are fooled by their own friends and family as zombies as if they would get better if you just talk to them. This is how many people in zombie movies get bitten. The song also has other basic zombie information like transmission and how to recognize them that would be better for those less familiar with zombies. The lyric video is unique and well designed and makes for a fun zombie song. 

2) Zombie - The Cranberries

Despite the title, this isn't really a song about zombies. It's about The Troubles in Ireland and specifically regarding the Warrington bomb attacks. The zombies could refer to the IRA members doing the bombings, simply following orders and not thinking about the devastation they are causing to their own people. Just another way that zombies can be used as a metaphor for something more meaningful. 

3) Iced Earth - Among the Living Dead

While this is another song whose style is not my favorite, the lyrics are like a poem about the undead. It's descriptive and even a little hopeful until the crushing defeat at the end. The frenetic momentum of the guitars and drums really drives the song and makes it effective. I love the bridge and when the band sings a little more lyrically. It's an epic song and encompasses the enormity of the zombie apocalypse.

How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

* spoilers *

Angel Crawford has grown a lot. She's self sufficient, off drugs, and even thinking about college. She's also gone through a lot recently what with the flood that destroyed her home and everything she owned plus the Saberton corporation killing people left and right. That evil corporation rears its ugly head again and kidnaps key members of the group she affectionately named the Zombie Mafia. One of these members is a doctor tht gave her and a fellow zombie an experimental treatment that is now causing them to rot despite a steady supply brains, If that weren't enough, there is clearly an informant in her trusted circle of friends and she doesn't know who to trust. Angel chooses to trust the Zombie Mafia group that's left, but is it a horrible mistake? Will her condition be cured before she is too far gone?

I've enjoyed the series so far and this installment brings a lot of awesomeness. First, Angel breaks up with Marcus. Finally! He's nice but oh so very controlling. The most recent incident involved him telling her they were moving without even discussing it with her first. She recognized that they are in a rut and will have the same arguments over and over. When she ended it, I cheered. The split was amicable and low on drama. Jane Pennington, mild mannered congresswoman, proves to be a crazy awesome badass that had some of the best lines in the book. I thought she was a minor addition to the last book, pleasant but forgettable. She is anything but here and I can't wait to see more of her. The overall plot was good and kept me turning the pages. One particular reveal had me abandoning real life duties to read what happens. This book also got a bit darker than others, which I enjoyed.

While I did enjoy the novel, this is the worst of the series for me. I usually read them within a couple of days, but this one took me 2 weeks. Angel has gone through a lot, but she cried through most of the novel over trivial things. I don't mind emotion, but the constant whining and crying grated on my nerves after a while. The rotting issue was pretty overlooked and wasn't treated as critical as it was presented. It just muddied the plot. My biggest problem was that a momentous zombie ability was revealed so late in the series. Pietro, being a very old and powerful zombie, can eat someone and adopt their appearance. First, it's annoying that this was never mentioned before. Second, it just seems cheap and gimmicky. It doesn't make sense in the world and no other zombie power is even remotely like it. My suspension of disbelief found its limit and dampened my enjoyment of the book.

The latest White Trash Zombie book is another success, but has some significant problems that classified it as the worst book of the series. Considering how much I enjoyed the rest of the series, it's not that damning of a title and I will still continue to read the series.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

September Zombies 2014!!!

It's that time of year again! All zombie all the time here at Fishmuffins of Doom. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to write this year because I just got my teaching credential and I'm looking for a job. So I will post about these beloved, rotting creatures when I can and keep sane with zombies.

Feral

Claire Cain moves to small town Peculiar, Missouri after surviving a brutal attack in her home town, Chicago. She had exposed a drug ring at her high school to clear her best friend's name after drugs are planted in her locker. Starting over in a small town should be easy, but too many things remind her of Chicago. The day she arrived in Peculiar, a girl named Serena Sims goes missing in a storm just like the one that Claire was attacked in. A few days later, Claire is the one to find her body, crushed by a tree branch and partially devoured by the many feral cats that populate the town. She needs to find out what happened to Serena and her journey for the truth leads to the abandoned basement of her school and the secrets that lay within.

Despite the writing being pretty decent, I just didn't like Feral. It seems to want to be a horror novel, but never quite gets that terrifying. The creepiest parts are when the young girls are attacked. The cats in the town are described being malicious and evil, but this annoyed me more than anything else. Feral cats may be a nuisance, but they aren't evil. I'm also kind of a crazy cat lady, so this part made me roll my eyes like crazy. Also, since the cats are really just for atmosphere, I'm not sure why it merited naming the book after them.

Although Claire has my sympathy for being attacked, I simply didn't like her. She is super smug, entitled, and just not likable. I couldn't relate to her at all. She does pretty offensive things like blaming her best friend for the attack she experienced and not even sending a one sentence text to the same friend who contacted her over and over to see if she's ok. I understand being frustrated that their relationship changed after the attack. It's hard to adjust after something like that and I'm sure it came from a caring place, but that in no way justifies Claire's later actions. The other characters kind of blurred together and lacked dimensions

The book veers into supernatural territory quickly, but in weird and heavy handed ways. For some reason Serena could still feel pain after death and then she possessed a cat and turned evil. There was no real logic to it and no real reason for a murder victim to suddenly turn murderous herself. A fog literally started talking to Claire, which just made me think she was mentally ill rather than experiencing supernatural phenomena. And you can't be suffocated in a car with the heater blowing. That's just ridiculous when air is being blown into the car at warm temperature and I'm supposed to believe the people inside are suffocating. Too much ridiculousness for one book. I was extremely disappointed and likely will not read another book by the same author.

My rating: 1.5/5 fishmuffins

Say What You Will

Amy has been going to school with the same people since she started, but very few people really know her. She has a severe case of cerebral palsy, meaning she can't walk without a walker, speak without a computer, or control her gestures or facial expressions. Adult aides have also helped her in her classes. To make more friends, she decided to employ people her own age in order to prepare for college and become more socialized. Enter Matthew, a sweet boy with obsessive compulsive disorder. He can't go a few hours without counting or tapping things, washing his hands over and over, fear of dirt or germs, and the irrational fear that something he does or doesn't do will inadvertently hurt someone. They become good friends when he works as her aide because he treats her like a real person and doesn't sugarcoat things. Their relationship eventually blossoms into something wholly unexpected.

Right off the bat, Say What You Will was a surprise because Amy's cerebral palsy, a central part of the novel, is omitted from the back cover. I'm not sure why this choice was made because I would definitely been more excited to read it had they included this aspect in the description. Her disability is severe and described accurately without glossing over things. There is no way for her to communicate without outward help: she can't speak or control her gestures or facial expressions. Despite her appearance and her nonverbal state, Amy is very intelligent and excels in school. She has never had any friends her own age, so she's very naive and doesn't know how to deal with people well. Her relationship with Matthew has a lot of extreme highs and lows due to miscommunication and the fact that neither of them has had a very close friend. He's the first person who isn't afraid to tell her the truth and refuses to treat her differently. I loved Amy for her honesty. She told things like they were and held realistic views. The lows she experienced were devastating because it's her first time experiencing rejection or being used or anything involving friends or boyfriends. Her depression and loneliness were written incredibly well and

Matthew was also a compelling and fully realized character. While he looks like a normal kid, he has debilitating obsessive compulsive disorder that isolates him and takes up much of his time. He's in denial about how severe it is despite the fact that it's very noticeable to everyone around him. Because of it, he avoids people, consumed with the irrational fears and compulsions in his mind. Although his issues are less obvious than Amy's, the effect is the same. They help each other out in a lot of ways and the relationship changes both of them dramatically. Most notably, Amy gives Matthew assignments to confront his OCD and he eventually gets professional help as a result. He is fragile in his own way and like Amy, the bad parts of the relationship are felt more keenly. Although their relationship never quite progresses to a full blown romance, their interactions are very sweet and I felt for them.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the story, some parts of it were bothersome. Amy and Matthew would go months without speaking after a fight at least 3 times during the novel. The same situation repeated and the characters learned nothing from it apparently when they regretted it each time. Amy was very analytical in her approach to things, sometimes too much so. She makes the most insensitive decisions sometimes and it's frustrating. The whole third act of the book is very unexpected and I understand why it's there, but I didn't like it. I felt it was sort of preachy and the narrative didn't go into the issues I felt were necessary involving the subject when teens are the target audience.

Say What You Will is a thought provoking novel that deals with disabilities, both those that are easily recognized and those that aren't. It shows that these people are just like any person and they don't deserve to be treated like their fragile or incompetent. I particularly enjoyed the different modes of communication shown: e-mails, instant messages, unsent e-mails, etc. I will definitely keep an eye out for other books by Cammie McGovern.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Love Letters to the Dead

It's Laurel's first year in high school and the first school year without her sister, May, or her mother, who moved to California after May's death. She transferred to a different school so that she wouldn't be pitied and known as the girl whose sister died. Her English teacher assigns a project to write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because he is May's favorite singer and also because she relates to his emotional lyrics.This first letter leads her to write to other dead celebrities, such as Amy Winehouse, Heath Ledger, Judy Garland, and John Keats. Laurel relates her lonely existence, her first friends at her new school, their antics, and her first boyfriend. Unfortunately, her refusal to talk about her issues and her penchant for doing dangerous things drives the people she loves away. Can she work through her issues before she permanently loses her friends or causes sever injury to herself?

Love Letters to the Dead is a very emotional book. Laurel goes through a lot in a very short amount of time and uses her letters to a variety of famous dead people to cope with it. She relates to their lives, their feelings, and their tragedies. I'm surprised that she researched more than what is common knowledge about their lives so that I learned something about them as well. Her letters also describe her new life and how she tries to transform herself. High school has much different expectations than middle school and she wears her sister's cool clothes and changes her habits to fit in. I generally liked Laurel and I felt for her. She's trying to work through her grief and the deep pain she feels while making mistakes along the way. Ava Dellaira employs beautiful, poetic prose that made me relate to Laurel and also made the book easy and enjoyable to read.

Unfortunately, I had quite a few issues with the book. Dellaira's lyrical prose isn't consistent. At times, Laurel writes in short and very simple declarative sentences that are a stark contrast to the lyrical prose that ventures into deep territory. It felt a bit disjointed and weird to me. She befriends Hannah and Natalie who basically peer pressure her into drinking, ditching classes, going to college parties, etc. She doesn't seem to want to actually do these things, but only wants to appear cool to her friends. This is never seen as negative, is never really addressed, and left a bad taste in my mouth. These are also very similar to May's destructive behaviors, but they magically didn't negatively effect Laurel's grades or behavior during school or at home even though she was getting drunk a lot, partying late, etc. I also didn't like her relationship with Sky. The chemistry was forced and the double standards were glaring. Sky expected Laurel to tell him everything while he kept up this mysterious guy facade and kept things from her late into their relationship. It was a bit awkward and the double standard bothered me. I was also shocked that her mother just decided to move out of state and leave her grieving family very soon after such a traumatic event. I felt it was incredibly selfish and pretty much unforgivable, especially when she calls weekly and expects Laurel to be ok with it.

Love Letters to the Dead is a mostly beautifully written novel. I enjoyed Laurel, her journey, and how she related to these dead people. Her story pulled at my heartstrings and took me on an emotional rollercoaster. The book addresses these mostly tragic figures lives well and informs the reader about their lives and their feelings. I did have some significant issues with parts of the story, but I overall enjoyed it.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins