Blog of the Dead: Eisha, Adrienne and Little Willowtri-review Generation Dead
Saturday, August 9th, 2008How lucky am I? I convinced Adrienne of What Adrienne Thinks About That to do another co-review with me, and I also talked Little Willow of Bildungsroman into joining the fray. And we’re talking about Generation Dead by Daniel Waters, which is all about teenage zombies. How perfect, since we’re all so into supernatural YA fiction, right? Well… read on.
First, though, let me tell you a little about the plot: For no reason that scientists can determine, American teenagers have started coming back from the dead. They can walk and talk, but they don’t eat, breathe, or sleep. Since they’re obviously a little creepy, and there aren’t any laws in place to protect the recently-deceased, they face a lot of problems with discrimination, ridicule, and even violence when they try to go about their un-lives. Quite a few of them have started attending Oakvale High, because it has a reputation of being tolerant toward the Living Impaired. Goth-girl Phoebe is intrigued by the phenomenon, especially because one of her former best friends has become a zombie, and there are some painful unresolved issues between them. She’s also intrigued by the attractive Tommy Williams, who seems to function better than most of the zombies and has even joined the football team. Phoebe’s nice-jock friend Adam is less interested, because he’s recently realized that he wants more than friendship with Phoebe and is less than thrilled by having a dead guy as competition. Nevertheless, he agrees to join her in a new discussion group/work study program created by the Hunter Foundation to foster greater understanding between zombies and the living.
We avoided major spoilers here, so you should be safe. Also, this is cross-posted at Bildungsroman and WATAT, for your tripled enjoyment. Read on!
eisha: So, ladies. I’ll start off by saying that I liked this book. It has an interesting and original take on zombie-ism, and I thought the way Waters used it to convey ideas about prejudice, hate crimes, social law, and societal reform was pretty cool. Also, I think this is one of my favorite covers of 2008.
However, I didn’t love the book. There were some significant flaws in the writing, and in the plot, that kept me from fully immersing myself in the story.
Did I mention how much I love the cover?
How about you, Little Willow? What’s your overall impression?