Review: Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse by Max Brallier

As a child of the 80s and 90s, I read my fair share of choose your own adventure novels. As a geeky child of the 80s and 90s, I used Hyperstudio to write, illustrate and program my own choose your own adventure. Wow. It's really a wonder anyone ever chose to marry me.

Anyway, when I heard there was a new novel out that was a choose your own adventure novel for adults AND it had to do with the zombie apocalypse? I had to order it. So Friday, during a very boring and long day of jury selection (I was sent home eventually...thank goodness), I chose my own zombie adventure...over and over and over again.

The novel has its positives and negatives (what book doesn't?), but I'd say my overall take was that it was definitely worth the $10.88 I paid for it. I spent virtually 7-8 hours reading it and I still didn't complete all of their paths. While it's no piece of prize-worthy literature, it is a lot of fun. It would be the perfect read for a vacation or a particularly boring professional development day.

At first, the character really irritated me. The novel claims to alleviate all of the "I would never have made that dumb mistake!" of traditional zombie literature, but it often doesn't because the character is still kind of an idiot. For example, when his cell phone rings and it's his mom, you can either chose to ignore it and sit in the house drinking beers or call her back (but then you end up having to follow her directions...who would do that?). Still, after four hours of reading, the protagonist grew on me a little bit more. They make him vague enough that you can see yourself in some parts of him, even if you think you'd do a better job. I guess I also get a little frustrated that women are never the narrators in choose your own adventure novels, but I guess that's not really the majority of the market. I'm used to it; I used to get the boy's happy meal as a kid.

When it comes to the choices you get to make, this novel is hot and cold. Sometimes the choices you get to make are the most important ones and the options are all logical, but sometimes the choices are relatively mundane when compared to the ones that the novel makes for you, but I accept that a writer can't write a path for every single decision. They'd never end up finishing that million page masterpiece.

Otherwise, the plot is engaging and fairly realistic. It's infused with "geek" at every turn, which is usually endearing, but it very occasionally gets to be too much. The description of a zombie battle at the New York Comic Con is funny. The author literally brings in every cosplay persona they could dream up, but the joke gets a little stale somewhere between Sonic the Hedgehog and Mr. T. Still, it's nice to know that it's a novel for geeks and by a geek, not just some failing writer hoping to capitalize on the zombie fad.

Lastly, the writing is about what you would expect from a choose your own adventure. It's publishable, but mostly concerned with action and plot rather than description. Don't come to it expecting a lot of visual detail or sophisticated description. The author writes like people talk, which I guess is good, but sometimes the poor usage of the English language and disregard for punctuation rules gnawed at me like a hungry walker. However, I will reiterate that that's clearly not the function of this novel. It's there to entertain, and entertain it does. If you're a resident of NYC (which I'm not), you'll be especially delighted by all the local references...which I had to look up.

Overall, I thank Max Brallier for giving me something to make a day at the courthouse more palatable. It was funny (especially the ending...you'll know which one I mean), and it did provide the reader with plenty of different paths and endings for hours of fun. So will you live or will you fall to the mercy of the flesh-eating ghouls? Check out Max Brallier's Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse to find out!

Review: Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor

Below is my amazon.com review of The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor. I finished the book a few weeks ago, but I thought I'd take the time to share the review on here, too. If you have read the comics, this novel is a quick read and would be a great weekend novel. Hint hint to your loved ones that it might make a good gift...cuz nothing says Christmas like zombies.

Just finished reading, and I must begin by saying that I'm nearly breathless. I read the final 2/3rds or the novel in a single day. Overall, this is a quick and very engaging read. It moves through plot at a reasonable and engaging pace without sparing visual description and insights into character emotions. From a gore standpoint, this is about as brutal as one could be in words, and certainly not for the faint of heart. I'd advise parents to really steer clear. This is not a stocking stuffer.

The good:
-The plot is perfectly crafted and manipulated. For readers of the comics and non-readers alike, you'll be biting your nails and throwing the book in the air for the entire ride.
-The characters are believable, both likeable and unlikeable, exactly what most people would likely devolve into given the situation. The entire scenario rings true, and it seems as though the author has clearly visualized the world of the story down to the tiniest detail.

The bad:
-I'm an English teacher, so I'm a big fan of metaphor, simile, personification, the whole lot of it. But the purpose of metaphor in literature is to further specify, describe and clarify a given image. Therefore, when your metaphors become overly obscure or detailed, it only serves to distract the reader from the story itself. Sure, it may seem like the metaphors here are beautiful to the point of near genius, but they are beautiful to the point of literary impediment. About 75% of the time, they strike true and achieve their purpose, but at least once every three or four pages you'll find yourself taking pause to dissect a metaphor. This is not the mark of great writing, even if it might appear as such to someone who is impressed by the sheer word craft.
-The author, like many writers, is clearly nurturing love affairs with certain words. I hate to point it out, as now you'll be looking for it, but the author might want to steer clear of the word "gape" and the word "primordial" going forward. The other words are getting jealous.
-The point of view, for me, was a little jarring. Usually novels written in present tense are also written in first person. Obviously, this isn't some sort of literary rule, and I applaud the author's attempt to break the mold. Still, at times I felt that this tense took me out of it. I guess that I just assumed it would be written in past tense since it is a prequel.

But overall, I'm really impressed. My above comments are nothing more than the petty nitpicking that accompanies true love and fan-dom. Why else would nerds still sit in their living rooms and argue about whether Jar Jar Binks was the worst decision Lucas ever made? When you love something, you see its flaws even more clearly, but you love it anyway. And I will say, still gasping from the mind-numbing genius of the final fifteen pages of this novel, that it is definitely worth your time. 

I'd love to chat about this with people once they read it! The ending demands discussion...or at least someone to gawk and scream with me! This will be the first in a series of Walking Dead novels, and you can read an interview with the author here. If you're still not sold on it, check on the preview below...which is basically just a dude reading the first few pages...lol.