Warm Bodies

I am addicted to reading end-of-the-world tales.  The idea that this greedy world we live in no longer exists due to an all-governing power, plague or natural disaster is thrilling and terrifying at the same time.

In Warm Bodies, a combination of natural disaster and epidemic plague have destroyed the world.  Now the majority of inhabitants are zombies.  The small number of human survivors live in abandoned sports arenas of large, desolate cities.

This particular tale is told from the point of view of a zombie named "R."  He meets Julie when he kills and eats her boyfriend.  Suddenly R's life is turned upside down.  He starts seeing his victims memories and somehow starts feeling his emotions.  R decides to spare Julie and takes her back to his zombie home.

Yes, the book perpetuates the stereotype of mindless, grunting zombies in search of human brain, but at the same time, the author goes to prove that maybe there is much more to zombies than meets the eye.  I actually started to sympathize with these zombies and their personal battles with the state of world in which they "live."

This book is much more meaningful and poetic than you would accept a zombie tale to be.  It's not about gore, horror and eating brains.  It's about human love and emotion and how precious those things are when everything around you is falling apart.  The zombie R becomes a lovable creature as the story progresses and you find yourself rooting for him.  What does that say about humanity?  In every zombie there is a trace of human emotion and perhaps in every human there is a mindless grunt and blank stare.

The Host

I didn't know what to expect from the author of Twilight, but this looked like it had potential since it claimed to be a dystopian novel, one of my favorite genres. 

In the end, I loved, loved, loved this book!  It is so much better than the Twilight series!  It's kinda sad, really, that all the Stephanie Meyer hype is over that famous vampire trilogy, when this one is by far more superior.  The Host was published in 2008, but is virtually unknown of by the masses.  The only reason I found out about it was by googling Stephanie Meyer and coming across a list of her publications.  Meyer's writing style is much more mature and easier to read in The Host.  Instead of making me want to gag with her romantic love triangles, Meyer portrays the relationships in The Host with true emotion and sentiment. 

As with all dystopian novels, this one opens with a bleak look at the destruction of human life as we know it on planet earth.  In this case, alien life forms from the planet Origin take over earth by inserting themselves into human bodies, or "hosts."  Their intention is to take over the world by doing away with the violence of humans and instead live in happiness.  They are kind aliens and only wish to bring peace to planet Earth.  However, to do so, they must eliminate all humans and use their bodies to survive.

As sci-fi as this sounds, it's actually sweet story of human kindness and how much we are willing to sacrifice for the ones we love. Wanderer is the alien soul that inhabits the body of a Melanie.  Wanderer discovers that the former human inside of her is somehow still alive.  The former Melanie's brain still functions as a separate entity from that of the alien Wanderer.   As Wanderer relives Melanie's memory and starts to actually communicate with her, she realizes there could be a glitch in the system, not to mention the possibility that there could be humans that actually exist free of alien soul inhabitants.  Following Melanie's instructions inside her head, Wanderer starts on an adventure into the unknown in search of human life.  She does not have the intention of killing them or taking over their bodies.  In fact, she doesn't even really know why she's so interested in the human thoughts in her head or why she's actually listening to them.


I don't want to give away too much, so I recommend you read this book as soon as you can.  It's a fun read!  I felt connected to the characters in that way where you don't ever want the book to end.  I want to get into my on Monday to drive to work and still hear the story of Wanderer and Melanie! 

This should have been made into the trilogy that made Stephanie Meyer famous.  As unrealistic as it is, that character development made it much more believable than Twilight. 

The End of Harry

I just finished the Harry Potter books.

It was a great journey.  Once I started in August of 2011, I couldn't put them down.  Yes, there was about a six week break between when I finished book one and started the rest of them, but after that it was non-stop.  In the span of four months, I covered the seven exciting years of Harry Potter and his dear friends Hermione and Ron. 

I loved the relationship between the three young characters.  They showed so much loyalty to each other, it made me cry in every book.  They were all just so sweet and lovable, I want to be best friends with them too.  One of my friends who actually read the books when they came out, commented that everyone should have Harry in their life.  I agree.

Movie: Water for Elephants

This movie made absolutely no sense to me.  I've even read the book and was still totally confused throughout the whole thing!  For one, the storyline was very loosely based on the novel and speaking of the storyline -- it was so jumbled and disjointed I was left scratching my head as to what just happened.  And I'm sorry to say, but Rob Pat and Reese had zero chemistry.  I didn't feel the love; Not to mention the anger or any other human emotion.

I was so bored with this movie, I paused and started it three times over three days.  It was like a drag trying to get through it.  Usually with movies (or books) like that I just give up and stop wasting my time.  However, I was intrigued enough with how hot Rob Pat looked as not a vampire, and I loved Reese's 1930's costumes.  As for any other character, they weren't even developed enough for me to remember who they were or what their role was in the story.  I liked Rosie the Elephant too.  I mean, who wouldn't?  She was great. 

I'm not surprised this movie was so bad.  I never expect much from books-turned-into-movies, so I wasn't even really disappointed.  The one thing that bothers me about situations like this though is that I wish the movie people would at least try to stick to the actual book's storyline as much as possible.  I mean, come on!  It's already there!  The script is already written!  How difficult is that?