The Living Dead by George A Romero & Daniel Kraus

 

Book Blurb

It begins with one body. A pair of medical examiners find themselves facing a dead man who won’t stay dead.

It spreads quickly. In a Midwestern trailer park, an African American teenage girl and a Muslim immigrant battle newly-risen friends and family.

On a US aircraft carrier, living sailors hide from dead ones while a fanatic preaches the gospel of a new religion of death.

At a cable news station, a surviving anchor keeps broadcasting, not knowing if anyone is watching, while his undead colleagues try to devour him.

In DC, an autistic federal employee charts the outbreak, preserving data for a future that may never come.

Everywhere, people are targeted by both the living and the dead.

We think we know how this story ends.

We. Are. Wrong.

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Review

I tend to gravitate toward a lot of fantasy based stories in the young adult genre, but I really wanted a good horror book to sink my canines into, which is why I was drawn to this book in the horror section on my last bookstore adventure. In terms of gore and shock, this book delivered. However, I found it lacking... I'm not even sure what. 

Greer pressed her nose flat to look harder. Was someone lying in the leaves near the swingless swing set? She angled her face, trying for a better look.

Romero & Kraus did a phenomenal job with the characters. All of which are dynamic and come to life on the pages perfectly. We spend enough time with each of them before moving onto different scenes or arcs, so they become real enough for the readers to root onward. Not going to lie, Charlie and Greer were definitely my favourites, but then again, they were definitely the badasses of this tale.

"You know how stupid that is? With those things around? And bellowing songs too?"
"Bellowing. Damn. Been a minute since I had a bad review."

What is a horror story without a smidgen of romance mixed in? Perhaps this is what turned me a bit sour toward this book. There are several instances where romance pops into the tale. I don't think it fit into the plot that well, but it was realistic in the sense that none of the romances seemed to have happy endings, which I'd assume is most plausible at the end of the world. Still, there were a few cute moments that made me smirk between the pages and pages of blood and gore.

Zombies. That's what else. It was like 6G replacing 5G, you know? It was our own doing. We created technology we couldn't live without. How dumb was that? We made ourselves into brain-dead bodies.

I did find it interesting how a lot of the themes in this book related to current concerns in today's world. I wouldn't be surprised if one, or both, of these authors were spiritually awakened. There's a lot of talk about how the cure to the plague is to turn their backs on the violence that brought them to this point, there's a ton of debatable conversations regarding religion, and at times, it felt as though the book were from a different time with the concentration on racist themes. All in all, it was a lengthy book that covered many avenues, but the characters are the reason I made it to the end.

Recommendation

I'd recommend this read to anyone looking for gory content, zombie literature lovers, and possibly conspiracy theorists looking for literature connections to the mass awakening.