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A review by aprivateislander
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
5.0
I did not expect to like this book, but I ended up loving it.
Generally speaking, while I do enjoy the fantasy and the sci-fi - it's a realm I prefer to explore in video games, movie theatres, and comic books. I picked up World War Z expecting, essentially, a poor-man's dictated version of the Walking Dead. I expected that we'd follow a protagonist through the typical rise and fall of the genre, with a few chills along the way and some 'scary' writing. This wasn't what World War Z was about at all. Instead, the book deals with the subject in an alarmingly realistic way.
Instead of the typical first person or third person pov, the stories are written like they are the transcripts of interviews. Instead of just romping through a city in Everywhere, USA (or UK) - we see the events unfold through the eyes of a Japanese nerd, a Palestinian boy, a feral American girl, a Chinese doctor, etc, etc. I'm a huge sucker for a variety of perspectives, especially international ones. It was just that - the variety of voices as they rattled off their various memories and experience - that got me. It's so close to the format and voice of many other books that I have, books that document real life horrors and tragedies that mankind have lived through. That's what made this book so frightening to me. Brooks might be dealing with something 'absurd', but he treats it with complete sincerity and seriousness, and I appreciated that.
I borrowed this book from the library, but I must buy it.
Generally speaking, while I do enjoy the fantasy and the sci-fi - it's a realm I prefer to explore in video games, movie theatres, and comic books. I picked up World War Z expecting, essentially, a poor-man's dictated version of the Walking Dead. I expected that we'd follow a protagonist through the typical rise and fall of the genre, with a few chills along the way and some 'scary' writing. This wasn't what World War Z was about at all. Instead, the book deals with the subject in an alarmingly realistic way.
Instead of the typical first person or third person pov, the stories are written like they are the transcripts of interviews. Instead of just romping through a city in Everywhere, USA (or UK) - we see the events unfold through the eyes of a Japanese nerd, a Palestinian boy, a feral American girl, a Chinese doctor, etc, etc. I'm a huge sucker for a variety of perspectives, especially international ones. It was just that - the variety of voices as they rattled off their various memories and experience - that got me. It's so close to the format and voice of many other books that I have, books that document real life horrors and tragedies that mankind have lived through. That's what made this book so frightening to me. Brooks might be dealing with something 'absurd', but he treats it with complete sincerity and seriousness, and I appreciated that.
I borrowed this book from the library, but I must buy it.