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A review by rynstagram
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
4.5
This book was a pleasant surprise. I didn't think it was gonna be bad by any means, but it really surpassed all expectations. The narrative is so wide-reaching and exhaustive, discussing things about a zombie war/infestation that I never would have thought of--religious repercussions both personal and community-wide, people who take advantage of disaster situations for personal gain, feral children and animals, new mental illnesses, etc. The "interviewer" goes all over the world to interview people who were involved in the war in all sorts of different places--not just different countries and regions, but different climates, under the sea, in isolation in the wilderness, even at the International Space Station. If this were real, I would be impressed by the interviewer's thoroughness.
I think the main thing that was missing was more exploration of more indigenous communities. There's not a dearth of indigenous characters, but the communities' responses to the zombie plague isn't really explored.
I like how self-aware this book is. There's bigotry, but only on the part of the characters. The author seems to include bigotry or fanaticism or general assholery to give a more comprehensive view of humanity dealing with a crisis. Without this, I wouldn't believe the story, even if it's not fun to read that part.
The biggest problem I have with this book is that characters' POVs are rarely repeated. Only a couple have more than one interview section throughout the book until the last chapter called "Good-Byes". I ended up forgetting names easily because of this, and when they showed up in other people's stories or as interviewees, I had to do a lot of flipping back. In order to get the full experience, I think I would need to reread this book at least once more.
All the interviewees sounded like real people, and sounded different from each other, which is hard to do just with a couple POVs, let alone dozens. And I am a big fan of the whole meta-media thing where creators pretend that their fiction is a real thing, hence the "oral history" part of the title and the "Introduction" describing the circumstances of the collection of these interviews. I love a good footnote, and the organization of interviews into related sections made the narrative more cohesive.
Damn, who knew a zombie book could be so cool? (Not me, that's for sure!)
I think the main thing that was missing was more exploration of more indigenous communities. There's not a dearth of indigenous characters, but the communities' responses to the zombie plague isn't really explored.
I like how self-aware this book is. There's bigotry, but only on the part of the characters. The author seems to include bigotry or fanaticism or general assholery to give a more comprehensive view of humanity dealing with a crisis. Without this, I wouldn't believe the story, even if it's not fun to read that part.
The biggest problem I have with this book is that characters' POVs are rarely repeated. Only a couple have more than one interview section throughout the book until the last chapter called "Good-Byes". I ended up forgetting names easily because of this, and when they showed up in other people's stories or as interviewees, I had to do a lot of flipping back. In order to get the full experience, I think I would need to reread this book at least once more.
All the interviewees sounded like real people, and sounded different from each other, which is hard to do just with a couple POVs, let alone dozens. And I am a big fan of the whole meta-media thing where creators pretend that their fiction is a real thing, hence the "oral history" part of the title and the "Introduction" describing the circumstances of the collection of these interviews. I love a good footnote, and the organization of interviews into related sections made the narrative more cohesive.
Damn, who knew a zombie book could be so cool? (Not me, that's for sure!)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Death, Abandonment, Suicide, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Medical trauma, War, and Body horror
Minor: Animal death, Cannibalism, Child death, Colonisation, Alcohol, Cancer, Forced institutionalization, Addiction, and Classism