REVIEW: World War Z by: Max Brooks
Okay, This review is going to be fairly short because World War Z isn’t like average novels that I am used to reviewing. This is the most popular book in the zombie genre period, and it does make sense why, it is a fairly good read.
Writing: The writing itself is hard to elaborate on because he writes in a different style due to the nature of the book. The book is written in Interview format thus the writing is hard to judge, but the writing wasn’t bad.
Plot: Well, there isn’t much a plot per say but the story itself is fantastic. He takes a random assortment of interviews from all over the world to puzzle together the story of the World War against the undead. He takes characters from different professions and backgrounds from across the globe, and with these interviews the reader can truly see how things developed during the zombie apocalypse. It was a unique take on the zombie genre that the genre needed, this book has basically opened up the book market for a lot of zombie authors and aspiring authors.
Characters: The characters in the book are hard to judge because you don’t have enough time to fully learn about them. Overall, the characters are weak, despite the strong stories they tell. The biggest problem about this story is the lack of good characters (because of the story’s style) and the fact that the reader cannot connect with the readers because he doesn’t have enough time to.
Realism: Okay, I am torn with the realism of this book. A lot of the stories were a little ‘out there’ with their realism but there was a lot of great aspects to this story relating to realism. The single best example of realism in this story is the man who created Phalanx.
He created a placebo during the initial panic to make a huge profit, and that was one of my favorite interviews personally because of how realistic it was. The best aspect of this book is the satirical outlook of the world within its pages and how that same ?mad? world actual reacts to the zombie apocalypse. He looks at the economic, political, moral and military reacts to the zombie apocalypse and he does it with clear accuracy.
The style: The style of this story sets it apart from every single one of the zombie books out in circulation. Now, I may be wrong but I feel as though this book was first intended to be a Screenplay or Script to a movie. But I think he had very little success with doing that and he decided to change the format and make this book. The story was also hard to get through at times. I felt that he could have rearranged the stories inside to better emulate a stronger pace. I felt the stories were good, they just needed to be arranged a little better (even though that they are somewhat chronological) Cause after reading the huge Yonkers thing, it was hard for the author to reach any higher climatic section than that one, and it was a hole he seemed to try and dig out of. Now the satirical material within the book does relate a lot to Max Brooks’ style of writing. Max Brooks is a very witty and humorous individual. I would suggest for anyone who liked his works, is to go to Youtube right now, and type in ‘Max Brooks Comicon 2008’ and you will see a few videos about him talking about World War Z. When watching those videos you will see how funny a guy he is, I was literally laughing throughout the thing because he is that funny.
Overall: This is the staple read for any zombie fan. This book is like the ‘War of the World’ meets the ‘Night of the living dead’. It is a creepy read that will leave you speechless; I would suggest this not only for Zombie aficionados out there, but for anybody who likes to read things about the world. Because Max Brooks successful reflects our world and that makes for a tantalizing read.
Available on Amazon
