While it is a
bit of an immature series that has not aged well in the few years since the
first book was published, there is something very uncynical and heartwarming
about the Warm Bodies series. Its tale of a zombie becoming sentient through
the power of love has its silly moments and I don’t blame people who do not
totally buy into it, but there is something sweet about it all and something
hopeful as well. The first book was really good, and the second, the much
larger book The Burning World felt like more of the same. This little 170-page
novella, The New Hunger, taking place before the events of the Warm Bodies and
acting as a bridge of sorts between the two books, maintains the spirit of both
books, and at times, was a rather brutal and bleak prelude to what was to come.
It focuses on three backstories to important characters in the book. We first
meet R, the zombie with a heart of gold, finding himself dead and unable to
satiate his hunger even though he is feasting on a dead deer. There is Julie, his
future love interest, traveling across the country and being taught in his
cynical and brutal ways of survival. And finally, there is Nora and her younger
brother Addis, who are abandoned by their parents in the midst of the zombie
outbreak and struggle to find meaning and hope for survival. Nora’s story can’t
help but overshadow that of R’s and Julie’s, which I found to be rather boring.
Listening to Nora explain to her much younger brother the ways of this new
world, a topic she herself is not very well-versed in, is entertaining, like
the meal they have in the Seattle Space Needle and ultimately tragic. This is a
good, smaller entry in an ongoing series whose power may have diminished, but somehow
still has a firm hold over my attention.
Rating: 4/5
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