World War Z Review...

            World War Z is written by Max Brooks. This was one of his first books and it’s being made into a movie that will come out in June of 2013. Max Brooks has written for Saturday Night Live. Max Brooks seems to like writing about zombies because he also has books out called Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks and Zombie Survival Guide. But anyways, World War Z takes place in post-apocalyptic unknown time era. There were three major things that really bothered me, they were the way the book is told, how many characters there are, and the time the book takes place.

            World War Z is told through a series of interviews. I’m not too fond of this writing style because you don’t get to connect to a character. I like it when I’m able to connect and grow alongside a character. In World War Z you always have the interviewer (and I’ve made the assumption it’s the same person every time) but they never give out their name, gender, age or anything that would help you get to know them better. I wish it was the story of the interviewer as he traveled the world and he wrote down what he saw and what other people saw but of course not everything turns out the way you want it to. So right now the book has a 0/5 stars, according to me.

            World War Z has too many characters. When you go from person to person and you never hear of them again it gets frustrating. I like when there is a book where if there are multiple people they at least come together at some point and the book’s plot unfolds. But the book’s plot never unfolded. It was always the same story; I need to survive and here’s what I did and what my thought of it afterwards. The characters also always use the same voice. They are always melodramatic for someone. It can be the zombies or a love one.  “’You went after the corpse?’ ‘To bury it. I couldn’t just leave it there, desecrating the stream. It would not have been… “proper”’”. This quote comes from a blind Japanese man who feels bad for the zombies. The guy feels bad for the things that are trying to eat him! I don’t like this. This is really weird and so unexpected that it shouldn’t have been used in the book.  So again right now the book has a 0/5 rating.

            World War Z also takes place in an unknown time and it takes a spin on previous events. “I watched the Al Jazeera broadcast from behind the counter at the Starbucks where I worked at every day after school.” This quote tells us that this Palestinian boy watches the Israeli leader speak. We can infer that this takes place right around 1995 or 2000. If I knew the book was going to be like this then I don’t think I would’ve read the book. It leaves out things that we know happened and doesn’t give an explanation on the things that led up to those things. The book also takes place post-war and you never read much about fighting. This wasn’t a great way of writing and I think it would help if Brooks started in the middle or before the war. The book does go in chronological order with how it starts with the outbreaks and then how everyone panicked and ends with the human population prevailing with all odds against them, but again this is told after the war not during and you only get the glimpses of aht everyone remembers. So yea this book has some decent parts in it but they are so far and in-between in this messed up world that it doesn’t make the book enjoyable. So I would give this book a 1/5 rating.

            Overall I didn’t enjoy the book. Don't get me wrong I love zombies as much as the next guy and I can play Black Ops Zombies akll day long but this book wasn't what i thought it was and the potential it has to be. There weren’t many action shots, too many characters, and there is no given time when the book takes place. The rating this book deserves is a 1/5. There just isn’t much to this book that made it worth reading. I would advise you to not read this book unless you’re into a lot of characters, a messy plot, and no given time era.