I wanted to take a moment and share my thoughts on this wonderful debut novel. As a whole, zombies never held that much of an interest to me. However, Warm Bodies explores the concept so much more than your typical horror story. While grotesque at first, the novel’s protagonist, “R”, takes us on a tour of what his daily life is like. Lots of brain eating, and even more groaning. But then we slowly start to discover that R is different than the rest of his undead race. He can mutter chains of up to four syllables and he longs to know anything about the life he once had as one of the Living. During one of his hunts to feed on human lives, he devours the brain of a young man, which allows him a view into that man’s past- his hopes, his memories, his pain, his love. In short, R witnesses a brief look at what humanity is.
The girl this young man loved becomes a hostage of R’s, but he promises never to hurt her, instead studying her intently. She teaches him that he doesn’t have to allow the plague to control him and that he’s more than just a zombie, at least on the inside. As he grows closer to this girl, fueled partly by glimpses of her boyfriend’s memories of her, R slowly understands the true meaning of what it is to care for somebody else.
The novel dwells on the theme that humanity in its simplest form is something to be cherished, which is then threaded around the meaning of life itself. When we lose our concept of humanity, the plague takes over inside of us, creating something ugly at our core, which in Marion’s novel is symbolized by using zombies. This was a fantastic novel, one that I read within two days because I literally could not put it down. The writing reads in such a well-written poetic way and my eyes devoured each and every word of it. Truly a masterpiece of its own merit, Warm Bodies is a standard by which other novels should be compared to. Simply beautiful and breathtaking, it will be a long time before I stop thinking about this wonderful book.
M. McKnight - Author 