Review: World War Z by Max Brooks

There probably isn’t much I can say about Max Brooks’ World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War that hasn’t been said a thousand times before. After all, WWZ is easily the most popular zombie novel released in the past few years. But I still want to have my say and who knows? Maybe I’ll end up saying something about the book no one else has.

I’m not normally attracted to zombie stuff. Movies about the living dead? No, thanks. Zombie pub crawls? Nah, I’ll pass. But I’d be lying if I said World War Z hadn’t caught my eye more than a few times when I was browsing the shelves at bookstores. So I finally checked it out from my local library and it turned out to be a rather pleasurable read.

Not many authors can put together a cohesive story through a series of vignettes from different characters’ perspectives, but I think Max Brooks does this effectively. The characters have unique enough voices in their interviews conducted by the narrator, but sometimes they begin to feel like just more of the same. Some of the interviews were especially chilling, like the narrator’s interview with Sharon, a “feral child,” and Jesika Hendricks’ retelling of how her family and others resorted to cannibalism to survive the winter at a refugee settlement in Canada. When reading, I often found myself grimacing, laughing or staring at the pages in awe of some of the interviewee accounts of what happened during the Zombie War. I probably said “Ugh, gross!” or “Retreat! Retreat!” aloud too many times to count.

One touch that I thought was really cool was how Brooks injected tidbits of pop culture into the narrative. In T. Sean Collins’ interview this was the most prominent, with obvious references to two popular political commentators from opposite sides of the spectrum getting it on while hell breaks loose around them and, let’s just say, Tinkerbell. I thought this brought a realistic touch to World War Z as it made it well known that not even super-wealthy socialites could escape from the affects of the world being overrun by the living dead.

Overall, World War Z was a good, enjoyable read. Quick, too. Only took me about three days to finish, but that may be because it sucked me in from the first page. I’m now listening to the audio book, which is just as good as the novel and the voice actors are spot on. This definitely won’t be the last book by Brooks I pick up. I’ve already requested The Zombie Survival Guide from the library.