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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
Finally finished! I amended my rating from two stars to three, since it grew on me. Sometimes you just have to be in the right mood for a lot of corny jokes, and this one has them in spades.
Here's the basic premise: Andy dies in a car crash with his wife and daughter. The wife dies, the daughter lives and Andy kinda does both. After he walks away from the embalming table, the SPCA pick him up (as they do every time a zombie is found wandering the streets) and his parents have to come claim him. The story starts with Andy discovering Mom and Dad in the fridge, so a huge chunk of the book is a flashback explaining what happened in between. Basically, Andy gets upset that he's treated like a second-class citizen, attends some support groups, falls in love with a girl zombie and discovers that human flesh is good eats.
Right after reading Breathers, Ron and I watched ZA: Zombies Anonymous. ZA came out in 2005 or 2006 depending on whether you believe the film credits or Netflix. The plot isn't the same and it was by a different writer, but if Breathers doesn't copy the story, it's still driving through the plagiarism neighborhood and taking notes about which houses have alarm systems. In ZA, everyone starts to come back after death and there is a zombie support group and there are a lot of jerks who go around messing with the nice zombies because they're racist--yeah I know it's not a race, but you know what I mean. And isn't it a coincidence that Browne's website, mentioned on his book, happens to share the title of the film? Hmmmm...
Here's the basic premise: Andy dies in a car crash with his wife and daughter. The wife dies, the daughter lives and Andy kinda does both. After he walks away from the embalming table, the SPCA pick him up (as they do every time a zombie is found wandering the streets) and his parents have to come claim him. The story starts with Andy discovering Mom and Dad in the fridge, so a huge chunk of the book is a flashback explaining what happened in between. Basically, Andy gets upset that he's treated like a second-class citizen, attends some support groups, falls in love with a girl zombie and discovers that human flesh is good eats.
Right after reading Breathers, Ron and I watched ZA: Zombies Anonymous. ZA came out in 2005 or 2006 depending on whether you believe the film credits or Netflix. The plot isn't the same and it was by a different writer, but if Breathers doesn't copy the story, it's still driving through the plagiarism neighborhood and taking notes about which houses have alarm systems. In ZA, everyone starts to come back after death and there is a zombie support group and there are a lot of jerks who go around messing with the nice zombies because they're racist--yeah I know it's not a race, but you know what I mean. And isn't it a coincidence that Browne's website, mentioned on his book, happens to share the title of the film? Hmmmm...
I had a fun time with this one! Not the usual zombie story -- in this one zombie-ness isn't contagious. When people die, some reanimate and some don't, for some unknown reason. Zombies have been around a long time but are still treated as second (if not third) class citizens. They aren't savage, mindless monsters, merely reanimated humans trying to get by, sometimes with the help of support groups and therapists. As a friend said, it's a good story of injustice and the fight for human (or in this case, zombie) rights. And it ended different than I was expecting, which is always fun for me.
I wasn't sure about this at first but it hooked me and I really enjoyed it. You have to have a dark sense of humor and be prepared to not want to eat meat for a bit.
4.5/5* Very enjoyable and funny, probably the best zombie book I've read! Recommended.
In this self-proclaimed "zom-rom-com" the undead are the sympathetic characters. Victims of trauma are unexpectedly and unexplainably becoming "reanimated." The zombies, all at different stages of acceptance, ability and decomposition, are outcasts of society. Their second class citizen treatment ranges from harassment (assault and limb-stealing) to SPCA imprisonment for curfew violations, with termination imminent if a human family member, or Breather, doesn't bail them out.
Some cope by meeting in AA-styled group sessions. In Undead Anonymous, Andy develops a crush on the lovely Rita (a suicide victim) and meets several unique and interesting individuals, including the charismatic Ray, a self-sufficient zombie who refuses to be disenfranchised and rallies the others for equal rights for the reanimated.
This very funny satire manages to not take itself too seriously without getting campy. Browne deftly balances humor with pathos, and gore with romance. The vivid writing flows, delivering a satisfying pace and many amusing scenes. Characterizations are strong, and the voice steady throughout. My one criticism is that there is a hair of predictability to the story, but the ending still didn't play out exactly as I thought.
The opening draws the reader in immediately: Andy comes to in his parents kitchen, suspecting he has just killed them. From there, Browne delivers a backstory that relates what life is like as a zombie that one could analogize to being a minority, gay, or even, a teen - others tend to make snap judgments about members of these communities and may be intolerant to varying degrees.
Some cope by meeting in AA-styled group sessions. In Undead Anonymous, Andy develops a crush on the lovely Rita (a suicide victim) and meets several unique and interesting individuals, including the charismatic Ray, a self-sufficient zombie who refuses to be disenfranchised and rallies the others for equal rights for the reanimated.
This very funny satire manages to not take itself too seriously without getting campy. Browne deftly balances humor with pathos, and gore with romance. The vivid writing flows, delivering a satisfying pace and many amusing scenes. Characterizations are strong, and the voice steady throughout. My one criticism is that there is a hair of predictability to the story, but the ending still didn't play out exactly as I thought.
The opening draws the reader in immediately: Andy comes to in his parents kitchen, suspecting he has just killed them. From there, Browne delivers a backstory that relates what life is like as a zombie that one could analogize to being a minority, gay, or even, a teen - others tend to make snap judgments about members of these communities and may be intolerant to varying degrees.
This book was well-written and hilarious. A nice refreshing story for fans of zombie tales like myself.
I had a hard time getting into this one. I found it a little boring and somewhat repetitive.
I'd like to say that I actually enjoyed the majority of this book. The main character and many of his companions in the unlife are great people that are fun to read about in moments both amusing and less serious. I will say that the last couple of chapters had the main character doing quite a turnaround as a character that left me feeling less than charitable toward him at the end despite his warranted right to behave the way he did in the end. This is a great book despite my issues with the character shift toward the end and I highly recommend it to horror and dark humor fans. I think that S.G.Browne should be proud of the work he did in this one.
Ok, sometimes funny story, but not great. Too wordy at times as the narrator goes off on tangents lamenting (as the title suggests) being a zombie. Pretty gruesome in some parts.
Full review at Compulsive Book Consumption.
3 1/2 stars. A little gross, occasionally thoughtful, and a lot of fun. Breathers reads like the flesh-hungry spawn of Chuck Palahniuk novels (Lullaby and Fight Club both come to mind) and Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies. Some of the jokes work and others, like a "transvestite" quip I could really have done with out, fall painfully flat. There's not a ton of depth, but overall, this was an entertaining read.
3 1/2 stars. A little gross, occasionally thoughtful, and a lot of fun. Breathers reads like the flesh-hungry spawn of Chuck Palahniuk novels (Lullaby and Fight Club both come to mind) and Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies. Some of the jokes work and others, like a "transvestite" quip I could really have done with out, fall painfully flat. There's not a ton of depth, but overall, this was an entertaining read.