Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (2011)

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I picked up this zombie romantic comedy purely because they made a movie of it and the trailer looked cute.  By the way, isn't that cover great?

This is a very endearing zombie romantic comedy--yes, zombie romantic comedy--that tells the story of R, a zombie wandering around in a zombie vs. survivalist humans world.  The story is told from R's point of view, and there are many laugh out loud moments.  When he eats the brain of a young human and falls for his girlfriend Julie, it gets a bit more serious.

But throughout, it still has lovely touches of humor. Marion does a beautiful job of getting inside R's head and still showing what he looks and sounds like from the outside.  It's thoughtful and philosophical about the end of the world in a way that most zombie, post-apocalyptic novels don't bother with--certainly not zombie movies anyway. R, Julie and her friend Nora are very endearing characters as are the complex leaders of the humans.

Really a great book and rather gentle and sweet for a book about zombies. The book was blurbed by Josh Bazell, which is an excellent readalike in tone and humor.  Interestingly, Isaac Marion is publishing The New Hunger, the prequel to Warm Bodies only as an e-book right now.