Sunday, February 10, 2013

Alice in Zombieland


Title: Alice in Zombieland
Author: Gena Showalter
Series: The White Rabbit Chronicles
Number of Pages: 404
Date Read: February 10, 2013
Genre: Zombies, Paranormal, Fantasy
Rating: A

Synopsis (Found on Goodreads.com)

She won’t rest until she’s sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever.

Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that’s all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.

Her father was right. The monsters are real….

To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies….

My Review:

This book was awesome. 

First off let me explain about the zombies in this book. They are like regular zombies in some ways. They are decaying, they are mindless, and they want to eat humans. However here is where the similarities end. These zombies are spirit zombies that only certain people can see. Let me repeat, NOT everyone can see them. The people who can see them are with born with the ability or they become able to see them because of a traumatic event. Ali's father saw the zombies but everyone thought he as crazy. Ali began to see the zombies after her family's death. Since the zombies in this book are spirits, they devour a human's spirit, not their flesh. The concept of the infection is the same. Zombie bites cause the human spirit to become a zombie, thus killing the body and the spirit emerges from the body a zombie. Since zombies are spirits, that means the slayers have to find a new way to fight them. How you ask? Well you just have to read this awesome book to find out! A few other notes on the zombies: In this book they're fast and only come out at night because of their sensitivity to the sun. I can't say I love this new version of a zombie since I am so used to the classic kind, but it was interesting to see the way the author spun her zombie mythology. 


The characters in this book were awesome. I love seeing a heroine kick ass. Alice, aka: "Ali" Bell knew basic fighting skills coming into the book because her father trained her. Ali is stubborn, brave, loving and all around a good character. She can be whiny at times though. I like how she absolutely loved her little sister Emma. She indulged Emma in everything and protected her fiercely. When Ali's entire family died, she was completely devastated especially about Emma's death. We can see her grief when shes as her family's funeral and she screams, falling down and crying hysterically. That part in the story was heart breaking to read and I found myself feeling what she was feeling. When Ali goes to a new school, she sees Cole and his group of bad ass friends who are known for fighting and everyone is scared of them. Turns out his group are zombie slayers who hunt and kill zombies and she finds herself joining their group. She wants to fight the zombies as well and kill them for what they did to her family. One thing I like about Ali is that she's not afraid to get up close with the zombies. She uses weapons to hack off heads and cut up some zombie meat. She uses her fighting skills to kick ass. And she gets hurt. Like seriously hurt which for me makes the story more real. I can't stand the heroine characters who are so dainty, run away and let the guys fight for them, its not that realistic. Or the heroine is so good at fighting that she never gets hurt. That's why I like this book and Ali's character.

Ali's best friend Kat is awesome also. She is hilarious and so confident in herself. She protects Ali in her own way and stays beside her no matter what. When Ali falls for Cole, Kat is supportive while the other girls in their group are not. The drop Kat and Ali as friends but those two stick together. Ali loves Kat and is grateful they have each other to confide in.

Now on to Cole. Oh my god is he sexy. He is absolutely my type of guy. Tall, dark haired, dressed in black, nice muscled chest and tattoos. I love tattoos. He is such a bad boy. Everyone in the school is afraid of him and that's how he likes it. He does what he wants, whenever he wants and no one stops him. I gotta say when he fights with his weapons, its hot. He is the leader of his group of zombie slayers and he falls for our Ali. The only thing I don't buy about him is the violet eyes. I don't know it just seems so far fetched for his eyes to really be that color. That doesn't change how much I like him though. If you want to know more about this beautiful creation, I strongly suggest you read the book. 

I just have to say this book is hilarious. I found myself bursting out laughing when reading some of the phrases and wit in the book. Ali's grandparents, who take her in after her family's death, are especially hilarious. They try to get up with the times by learning slang. They use words like "Get all up in her biznez", "crackalackin", "Chewed, Cranked, Trashed" and one of my favorites "douche purse". Ali has some witty phrase of her own such as "I felt frumpy and way out classed, like i'd been selected from homeless Dog's Weekly" and "A smorgasbord of hot, sweaty guys and warrior weapons. I'd stepped into every girl's fantasy." There are more funny sayings throughout this book that had me rolling with laughter. 

So if this book is so good why only an A? Because it had one of the things that I really dislike, besides love triangles, which is insta-love. Once Cole and Ali see each other for the first time, that's it. You know they are going to be together. She falls for him the moment she sees him and while we don't get his perspective on it, I'm pretty sure he felt the same way about her. He goes out of his way to protect her and get to know her. He becomes jealous when she dances with some guys at a club. He is always with her. His friends, have commented by saying that they never seen him like that with some one. And lets not talk about what Ali thinks of him. Its all mush and hearts and love. Also I don't like how trashy the kissing was. It was all tongue down her throat, how Ali wanted him naked when she was kissing him and the positions they kissed in belong in an adult book. Instead of finding myself entertained by their make out session I found myself grossed out. I don't need to read about how his tongue played with hers and his hands knew what they were doing. Gross.

So this is the conclusion to my review. I strongly suggest reading this book. If you can look past the things I said in the last paragraph (or if you like that stuff), the you should definitely give it a try.

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