Taking on the Dead by Annie Walls
My rating: 3/5 cats
okay, this is another book that has such uniformly high ratings that i don’t feel bad for being a little critical, even though i do have a soft spot for the self-published authors, and i do always try to cut them a little more slack than i ordinarily would.
right off the bat – this book is not bad. but it does have its problems, and i am going to discuss those problems, hopefully in a humorous way. but since i have suddenly made the stgrb posse aware of me by writing them an email about how joe’s review of matched is in no way a bullying one, and their calling it bullying is desperate, i assume that any even slightly negative review i write from here on out will probably be posted “somewhere.” oh, well. i’m not going to pretend every book is perfect. because not many are.
i saw this book on here a long time ago, and it seemed like it would never become available, but i had it filed away in the brain as “this is a YA zombie adventure book that i shall read someday.”
whoops.
this is not YA.
and it is not even really a zombie novel.
it does have zombies, yes, but the things that shape and progress the narrative are not the elements you find in a typical horror/adventure novel. they are the things you find in a romance novel. and that’s fine – i am in a romance-novel book club, and an erotica book club, and while i don’t usually willingly read within the genre, i am not averse to reading them. but i hate being fooled into reading one when i am rarin’ for pure zombie goodness.
again – there are plenty of zombies. there are action sequences and blood and gore and weaponry and all of that, but the middle hundred pages are pure romance, where characters discover feeling, repress feelings, are confused by feelings, reject feelings, reconsider feelings, and have intercourse.
fine. we have identified the novel and called it a romance. i assume i will get some argument on this matter, but i will not bend. the concerns in this novel are more of the interpersonal variety than the survival variety.
so, moving on. this is an e-book, and it falls into the oopsies that less stringently-edited books do: compound words masquerading as separate words, inelegant word-breaks, apostrophe errors, typos – how you react to this depends on how sensitive you are to these things. usually they don’t bother me, but i feel i should mention it for the grammar-intolerant. it’s just a little sloppy:
The afternoon light coming from a window shines behind me, making my hair look ratty. My dark brown hair has, at some point, become a ratted, matted mess, creating thick dreadlocks falling down my back to my waist.
later “flowers” give a “floral scent” to the air, etc…
although sometimes it is adorable:
They are sitting chickens waiting for slaughter. And who knows what else?
I AM HAVING AN ANIMAL METAPHOR PARTY!! THEY ARE ALL COMING AT ONCE!!! NO, I DON’T THINK IT WILL BE WEIRD, THEY WILL JUST MERGE…
the names in this book kill me: kale, glinda, kansas*??? and rudy as your dreamy male lead??? there is only one rudy, and it is not a sexxy dude:
(although – holy cow – she got gorgeous)
but what is happening here?? do only people with stupid names get to survive zombie apocalypses?? (i am not even going to mention kansas’ full name, because that is just… wow)
but it really doesn’t matter what kansas is actually named, because she is more often that not called “kan” or “darlin'” or “sunshine,” or “suga.”which drove me crazy.
this is when i first realized i was in trouble:
Black leather boots under frayed jeans hold a zombie head down as he jerks an arrow out of the skull. His arms flex when he wags gooey bits from his arrows.
I can’t see his face, but he is tall, much taller than me with broad shoulders and wavy brown hair tied back with a green bandana. His hair shines golden brown as it blows in the wind, caressing the compound bow strapped to his back.
A large arrow holster hangs by his side. The hunting bow goes from the back of his knees to a few inches above his head. The biggest bow I’ve seen, making me think it is custom made. The wind blows in the other direction, and his hair whips across his face. It barely brushes the tops of his shoulders.
This guy is locked, stocked, and loaded with a big gun tucked into the front of his jeans.
oh, indeed. still think we are in a horror novel? with all the jerking and flexing and blowing and caressing and big bows?? oh, yeah, and the big gun in the front of his pants. i nearly missed that subtle image.
but this – this is where i almost lost my mind:
“Well, I see yew wakin’ up. We have a tawk, yew and me.” Again the accent confuses me, most likely from a northern location.”Pretty boy came into duh city, told me yew was sick, so I lent dem drugs to yew. Pain killas too. Got’s stitches now, yew gotta be careful wit dat. I know da pretty boy from months past. Met him lookin’ all like juice head gorilla. He’s off seeing to me a fava. But yew gots a few more days, needs dem drugs for two weeks.”
writing in vernacular should never be attempted by someone unless they can really make it work.what kind of accent is that supposed to be, anyway?? (incidentally, the character’s name is “guido,” so i can hazard a guess, but what a mess.) and why, later, repeatedly, should “fuk” be spelled like that? it has the same sound as “fuck.” is it just to denote the relative stupidity of the character? like, “man, this person would probably spell that word this way because they are totally dumb and low-class…”
in a related note:
the “asian-american” character is introduced at the same time as “his buddy,” the “african-american” character. the “asian-american” is a practitioner of the kung-fu, while the “african-american” character is… ready?? DANCING TO A BEAT IN HIS HEAD, all gold teeth and baggy clothes. he then says “wussup?” it is good to see that the antiquated stereotype store is still in business.
this is a tiny thing, but it is more evidence that we are not in a zombie novel: you get to go through someone’s closet to find new clean clothes and you choose a sundress?? no. a thousand times no. you don’t need to look good, you need to be able to run and climb and maybe you want some more coverage so that zombie-teeth have to work harder to break your skin. also, as an aside – waist-length dreadlocks are another zombie no-no. yeah, it makes you look all tough and mad max-y or whatever, but a zombie is just gonna use them to reel you in like delicious seafood. good lord, do i have to teach you people everything?
I decided against taking anything, believing we have enough of this stuff anyway.
i never understand this attitude. you know the world has essentially ended, and they aren’t making any more of this stuff, right?? this is like that susan beth pfeffer series, where they are all “let’s just take what we need right now because i am sure no one else will want these supplies and they will be here forever…” NO! INCORRECT!! usually hoarding is bad, but THIS IS THE END OF THE WORLD, PEOPLE! this is zombie novel rule 101. oh but right – we are in a romance novel. we are all about measuring out the release… the tease… the slow disrobe. let’s not take it all at once.
gain one star cat for underground zombie sex party. you would think this would lose it a star cat, but i actually liked this club – where men fight in the ring (yes, this also points to it being a romance novel, as our sweaty male lead fights for dominance under the watchful gaze of our reluctant female), and zombies are chained to pillars and nudely “dancing” in cages for lively decorations. i thought this part was very evocative and not something i have read before. i liked the atmosphere she wrote here, although i personally would never go to one of these places. i am liking it as a reader, not as a “gee, i wish these places existed…” i also liked the tip on “why we mustn’t throw molotov cocktails at zombies”:
I quickly figure out why this is not a good idea. It only makes the zombies come at you while on fire.
i file that one away for future use.
but, lose one star cat for letting someone who was bitten by a zombie into your secure bunker.
so, this review is my response to all the 4 and 5-star reviews, which make me sad for not loving it as much as everyone else, but “fine” does not make me give it a 4. unfortunately. not even to an indie.
*which, if you have seen zombieland, should make you wince. particularly when the film is explicitly referenced later.
