<p><i>Warm Bodies</i> by Isaac Marion</p>
<p>Zombies are great. I love zombie horror films, and The Walking Dead is the best thing going right now. So as soon as I heard about <i>Warm Bodies</i>, I knew I had to read it. More so because it's zombies on the flip side.</p>

<p>R is a zombie, a first person narrator, and an all-thinking zombie. He doesn't know how it happened, and he doesn't remember his name, but he does know that he doesn't like this kind of living.</p> On a foraging mission to find some living food, he kills a young man and eats part of his brain. The next thing he does is save a human girl, Julie. The result is a relationship without precedent as the two try to figure out a way to co-exist in a world that is falling apart. Meanwhile, R seems to be connecting with the soul of the young man whose brain he has eaten, and so becomes a zombie both inwardly and outwardly conflicted.</p>

I didn't think it could happen, but apparently it is possible to be attracted to a zombie. R is thoughtful, and charming, and the reader is easily pulled into his nostalgia for living life. His passion and desire for all his good intentions is heart-warming. But, being a zombie, he's still distanced from complete human life. Watching R change and grow through the book was exciting and nerve-racking: I wanted so badly for him to cope and to be understood.

<p>Julie, the main human focus of the novel, annoyed me at first. Initially, I couldn't put my finger on it, but I really think that it's because I was so close to R and his world view that I was frustrated when Julie didn't understand him and that she wasn't treating him the way he deserved to be treated. That's quite a testament to an author, to have a reader so keen on a protagonist, especially so early in the novel. She grew on me though, and the difference between her personality and R's was often nothing short of adorable.

<p>Isaac Marion has created a modern fairytale, a 'what-if' scenario in a world that might not be too far off our own. <i>Warm Bodies</i> is written like Marion had a great time writing it and it often feels like he enjoyed creating R's story as much as I enjoyed reading it.</p> <p>Zombies, decay, and death, and yet I closed the book with the fuzziest contentment.</p>