Book Review: Alice in Zombieland

Synopsis:

SHE WON'T REST UNTIL SHE'S SENT EVERY WALKING CORPSE BACK TO ITS GRAVE. FOREVER.Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. But that's all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.Her father was right. The monsters are real.To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn't careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies.

If you’re looking for a zany retelling of Alice in Wonderland, this is not the book for you. The Wonderland elements are practically non-existent. If, however, you’re looking for a fast-paced zombie action thriller, with swoon worthy bad boys and a kick-ass heroine, you’ll love Alice in Zombieland.

Alice Bell lives with a number of unbearable rules set down by her father, the foremost of which is that no one can leave the house once the sun’s gone down (this is to protect them from the monsters only he can see). But on the one night that Alice finally manages to get everyone to go out, tragedy strikes, leaving Alice an orphan. Now Alice is seeing things too; not only is she seeing monsters outside her grandparents house, but every day when she looks at bad boy Cole Holland, she has visions…visions of them making out, or fighting a pack of these monsters. Soon Alice learns that her father wasn’t crazy, and that there is a war going on that on a few people can see, though many are affected by it.

This is a super fun ride. I love Gena Showalter’s characters, her writing style, her imagination…it’s just all so interesting and fun, although creepy at the same time.

This is a zombie book, people. As in bitey-bitey flesh eating fun. So if that’s not your thing, head in the other direction. It’s not super graphic, but it’s pretty gross at times.

That being said, there’s also a ton of really cool fight scenes. Showalter writes very visually, so it’s practically like watching a movie when you read the action bits. Ali is a fairly solid heroine; she already knows how to fight some from her father, and she can hold her own against a zombie, though Cole works on training her. She deals with some PTSD, which is completely understandable, and was a nice foil for when she was like “I can handle killing all these zombies by myself”, though that rarely went as planned.

Cole Holland. Zombie Slayer. Bad Boy Extraordinaire.

Showalter utilizes a couple of ideas that made me love her even more when she developed their relationship. Maybe you’ll call it instalove, and I can see that, but I liked it so much more than instalove. When they see each other for the first time, they have these visions of them making out, and yet they’ve never met before. Do they immediately make out? Of course not, don’t be silly. There’s actually quite a bit of angst and annoyance and frustration in their relationship for a lot of the book. I thought their development was good.

Showalter not only has a fabulous central couple, but her main secondary couple may be one of my favorites: Kat and Frosty are sweet, idiotic, hilarious, and ultimately adorable. Kat is Ali’s best friend and one of my favorite “best friends” in YA. She’s sarcastic, unapologetically so, but in a somehow charming and entertaining way. Frosty is Cole’s best friend, and he is so in love with Kat; she really makes him work for it too. I can’t wait to see more of them in Through the Zombie Glass.

Alice in Zombieland is exciting, action packed, and extremely romantic. Good for fans of  Kresley Cole’s Poison Princess.