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badseedgirl's review against another edition
3.0
My final read for my 2024 Zombie Jesus Easter book marathon.
This book was so close to a 4 star read. There was an interesting premise to the book and the characters were not completely unlikable. But the writing style was just so darn pretentious. It wasn't so bad that I wanted to quite reading, but I just found myself getting annoyed by the author. There are two additional books in the series. I'm not sure if I will continue on with them or not.
This book was so close to a 4 star read. There was an interesting premise to the book and the characters were not completely unlikable. But the writing style was just so darn pretentious. It wasn't so bad that I wanted to quite reading, but I just found myself getting annoyed by the author. There are two additional books in the series. I'm not sure if I will continue on with them or not.
sarahanne8382's review against another edition
2.0
This book is a total train wreck, and yet strangely readable. However it's the first of a trilogy, and I have no plans to read the rest of the series. Essentially, a man-made zombie-like plague has descended on the world, only women are more easily susceptible to it than men, thus infected humans are called Xombies. Our heroine is a 17-year-old who appears to be unaffected by the plague and manages to escape with her estranged father onto a returned-to-action Navy sub.
The writing isn't terrible, and probably why I didn't give up and through this book against the wall, but the plot is terrible, completely unpredictable in a manic way with holes big enough to drive a nuclear submarine through. I could detail it all for you, but I already spent enough time reading, so I'll just sum it up as a big misogynistic mess (made worse by the fact that I think the author doesn't get how misanthropic his storyline is. "But the hero is a woman!" I can imagine him saying. Yes, a woman who is the definition of a Mary Sue, who's played by every man in the book and her desirability is shown in large part by how many times men attempt to rape her and those who are her friends protect her. And don't even start on how the disease instantly infects menstruating women, but has to be transmitted orally to men and non-menstruating women ... but I digress).
So basically, save yourself some time and read a better zombie book. World War Z should be everyone's first read. Empire of Salt was also an interesting twist on the zombie genre. Otherwise I'm a big fan of the more comic Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Queen Victoria, Demon Hunter.
The writing isn't terrible, and probably why I didn't give up and through this book against the wall, but the plot is terrible, completely unpredictable in a manic way with holes big enough to drive a nuclear submarine through. I could detail it all for you, but I already spent enough time reading, so I'll just sum it up as a big misogynistic mess (made worse by the fact that I think the author doesn't get how misanthropic his storyline is. "But the hero is a woman!" I can imagine him saying. Yes, a woman who is the definition of a Mary Sue, who's played by every man in the book and her desirability is shown in large part by how many times men attempt to rape her and those who are her friends protect her. And don't even start on how the disease instantly infects menstruating women, but has to be transmitted orally to men and non-menstruating women ... but I digress).
So basically, save yourself some time and read a better zombie book. World War Z should be everyone's first read. Empire of Salt was also an interesting twist on the zombie genre. Otherwise I'm a big fan of the more comic Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Queen Victoria, Demon Hunter.
owls_rainbow's review against another edition
We have spent way too many pages on a submarine with next to no plot development.
owls_rainbow's review
We have spent way too many pages on a submarine with next to no plot development.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Death
Moderate: Sexual assault
readerxxx's review
5.0
For a zombie book, I rate this a 5. Compared to books outside its genre, its a 3.5-4.0.
Finally a zombie book that adds something new to the genre! This is more than just an "OMG there's zombies, lets spend the next 24 hours running from them," kind of book. This author spins a tale of political intrigue wrapped around a great zombie story.
Love it love it love it. I can't wait to read the second and third in the series.
Finally a zombie book that adds something new to the genre! This is more than just an "OMG there's zombies, lets spend the next 24 hours running from them," kind of book. This author spins a tale of political intrigue wrapped around a great zombie story.
Love it love it love it. I can't wait to read the second and third in the series.
lea_michelle91's review
4.0
I enjoyed reading this novel. it captures you from the beginning. I felt it getting slow in the middle but if you push through it, it comes back alive.
bibliovino's review
2.0
Well that was…something.
I can’t fault the writing in this book, it’s very well done and eerily poetic. But the plot is just one crazy thing after another. I suppose when you’re imagining the end of the world you get some leeway, but I was blindsided again and again. It was hard to come up for air honestly.
Lulu is an interesting, but implausible character. She’s set up to be the Eve of the apocalypse, which is pretty cool, but making her out to be a genius in a child’s body was weird. I wanted to like her, but her strangeness made that difficult.
While I’m mildly curious about what happens in this world, it’s not enough to entice me to continue the series.
I can’t fault the writing in this book, it’s very well done and eerily poetic. But the plot is just one crazy thing after another. I suppose when you’re imagining the end of the world you get some leeway, but I was blindsided again and again. It was hard to come up for air honestly.
Lulu is an interesting, but implausible character. She’s set up to be the Eve of the apocalypse, which is pretty cool, but making her out to be a genius in a child’s body was weird. I wanted to like her, but her strangeness made that difficult.
While I’m mildly curious about what happens in this world, it’s not enough to entice me to continue the series.
aab0990's review
2.0
A muddled book. Too much going on and poorly executed. Parts were rushed while others were too descriptive. At least I found a book to fulfill my "X" 2017 alphabet challenge...
trupti's review
2.0
Xombies…What do I say about this book? I picked it up from a store because of the awesome cover and of course because it had Zombies. It does starts with some fun and gory zombie fighting that I was expecting from this book in the first place. The Zombies are created by a virus called Agent X which mysteriously affects women first.
17 year old Lulu and an old guy Mr. Cowper flee from their homes and go to a Navy base to find protection with the navy. Cowper is supposed to be Lulu’s father, the guy who ran away from her mother and someone whom Lulu had never met for the first 17 years of her life.
Circumstances lead to Lulu and Cowper running away together. But what they find at the Navy base is not protection but hundred’s of men and boys who Cowper suspects would be left behind once the Zombie defenses stop working and they invade the base as well. Cowper along with the men takes control of the Submarine which then sails (?) off to the Artic regions.
So far so good. I was really into the story until all the zombies were wiped out from the Submarine. But after that the Zombies kind of disappear for almost 200 pages of the book. That would have been okay if the rest of the book would have been good. But the Submarine descriptions were very tedious and I found myself very disinterested after that. I couldn’t picturize the descriptions and there was too much technical jargon. Honestly I skipped a lot of that section and it’s a huge section of the book.
The last hundred pages or so were really good but then again I was so bored with the middle section that I just wanted to finish the book. So I read the last 100 pages real fast which kind of led to me to missing out certain explanations of the Agent X that caused the Xombies. I found a few loopholes in the story but then again I said I skipped, so I’m not sure they were really loopholes.
The 2 stars are mainly because after the first 100 pages I lost interest in the book. Even the last 100 pages of the book could not revive my interest. But not wanting to be completely unfair, I will tell you what I liked in the book. I liked the writing style. The protagonist Lulu was a very street smart and intelligent girl whom I liked right from the start. The bond between father and daughter though not in the face was nicely developed. The Zombie sections, however few were awesome, so was all the action.
All I can say is that this book needs major editing, especially for the Submarine part.
This book is re-releasing this year with a different cover (which I don’t like much) and title XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES, with the sequel XOMBIES: APOCALYPTICON coming out in 2010, I think.
First posted at http://violetcrush.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/xombies-by-walter-greatshell-for-r-i-p-challenge/
17 year old Lulu and an old guy Mr. Cowper flee from their homes and go to a Navy base to find protection with the navy. Cowper is supposed to be Lulu’s father, the guy who ran away from her mother and someone whom Lulu had never met for the first 17 years of her life.
Circumstances lead to Lulu and Cowper running away together. But what they find at the Navy base is not protection but hundred’s of men and boys who Cowper suspects would be left behind once the Zombie defenses stop working and they invade the base as well. Cowper along with the men takes control of the Submarine which then sails (?) off to the Artic regions.
So far so good. I was really into the story until all the zombies were wiped out from the Submarine. But after that the Zombies kind of disappear for almost 200 pages of the book. That would have been okay if the rest of the book would have been good. But the Submarine descriptions were very tedious and I found myself very disinterested after that. I couldn’t picturize the descriptions and there was too much technical jargon. Honestly I skipped a lot of that section and it’s a huge section of the book.
The last hundred pages or so were really good but then again I was so bored with the middle section that I just wanted to finish the book. So I read the last 100 pages real fast which kind of led to me to missing out certain explanations of the Agent X that caused the Xombies. I found a few loopholes in the story but then again I said I skipped, so I’m not sure they were really loopholes.
The 2 stars are mainly because after the first 100 pages I lost interest in the book. Even the last 100 pages of the book could not revive my interest. But not wanting to be completely unfair, I will tell you what I liked in the book. I liked the writing style. The protagonist Lulu was a very street smart and intelligent girl whom I liked right from the start. The bond between father and daughter though not in the face was nicely developed. The Zombie sections, however few were awesome, so was all the action.
All I can say is that this book needs major editing, especially for the Submarine part.
This book is re-releasing this year with a different cover (which I don’t like much) and title XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES, with the sequel XOMBIES: APOCALYPTICON coming out in 2010, I think.
First posted at http://violetcrush.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/xombies-by-walter-greatshell-for-r-i-p-challenge/