World War Z
Max Brooks
"I wanted to read World War Z in large part because I had read Max Brooks, the author's first book, which was The Zombie Survival Guide.
The book is really, it's a fictional narrative that's written as though sort of an oral history - sort of like Studs Terkelish, kind of working - that is the stories of all the people during the course of this zombie war, which was a World War Z, the zombie war. It goes through all the different geographies and histories through people telling their own individual stories. There's lots of different personalities and lots of storylines.
It's both tongue-in-cheek, it is sort of - it plays at being funny; it's true that it's not realistic, and yet it's written as though it's realistic. It's true fiction narrative. It's really trying to write something into reality, and I liked that a lot about it. I liked that it's sort of - it's farcical and yet it's told as though if you've read Studs Terkel or someone that's doing Working, or they're doing oral histories, they really are oral histories, and it comes across. It comes across as though it's very true and happened, but at the same time maybe it did happen or didn't happen. It's unclear.
If there's anything I didn't like about the book, it was only that it was too short; but it could have gone on and been even more detailed and I really enjoyed the book.
I would certainly recommend the book to anyone that enjoys zombies or thinks they're interesting - by all means, anyone that wants to read something that's sort of fun. If you're into post-Apocalyptic books, it's interesting. I think it's very accessible. I think it would be a good thing to have high school students read just to make sure that they're reading something and that they're getting into the habits of reading and like reading. I know this might be controversial, but I personally would give the book five stars as one of the better books that I've read and that I really enjoyed; and really, it changed my mind about I never thought zombies were interesting, and now all I do is talk about zombies with my friends and really think they're compelling and fun to talk about."
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