Your Heart Will Hunger for "Eat Brains Love"

Eat, Brains, LoveTitle:  Eat Brains Love
Author:  Jeff Hart
Format:  E-galley
Length:  352 pages
Publisher:  Harper TEEN
Date of Publication:  October 1, 2013
Rating:  4 stars

 Two teenage zombies search for brains, love, and answers in this surprisingly romantic and laugh-out-loud funny debut novel with guts.

Jake Stephens was always an average, fly-under-the-radar guy. The kind of guy who would never catch the attention of an insanely popular girl like Amanda Blake-or a psychic teenage government agent like Cass. But one day during lunch, Jake's whole life changed. He and Amanda suddenly locked eyes across the cafeteria, and at the exact same instant, they turned into zombies and devoured half their senior class.

Now Jake definitely has Amanda's attention-as well as Cass's, since she's been sent on a top-secret mission to hunt them down. As Jake and Amanda deal with the existential guilt of eating their best friends, Cass struggles with a growing psychic dilemma of her own-one that will lead the three of them on an epic journey across the country and make them question what it means to truly be alive. Or undead.

Eat, Brains, Love is a heartwarming and bloody blend of romance, deadpan humor, and suspense that fans of Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies will devour. With its irresistibly dry and authentic teen voice, as well as a zombie apocalypse worthy of AMC's The Walking Dead, this irreverent paperback original will leave readers dying for the sequel that's coming in Summer 2014.


My Thoughts
This book reads as two stories that while they intersect from time to time, do not truly come together until the end.

Story one...
The zombification of  Jake and Amanda and there resulting exodus from Ronald Reagen High amid all the carnage that ensues.
Jake and Amanda prove to be very thoughtful and intelligent characters who do a lot of psychological maturing and manage to develop a very healthy friendship under very strange and troublesome circumstances.  
Jake and Amanda's story is full of so much more than blood and gore.  There are quite a few funny moments, those life affirming moment's of "he or she is more like me than I thought", and the beginnings of a friendship/romance.
The story told here is very engaging, fun, fast-paced, and serves as the driving force for the plot.

Story two...
 This is the story of the Necrotic Control Division, a federally funded task force charged with containing the zombie problem and lying to the public.
This is where we meet Cass, a sixteen year-old operative who was recruited due to her amazing psychic abilities.
For the most part, Cass seems a fish out of water.  She is the child in a room full of adults, and for the most part just wants to go home.
Her story is in fact, where things start to get sad.
She sees most of the blood, gore, and carnage.  She also finds herself a pawn in the sick plot of her boss Alastaire, to train a captured "zombie attack force".
Ewwwww!!!

Story Pluses
Intelligent zombies
Fleshed out plot
Humor
Origanal story elements
Lack of insta-love

 Story Minuses
Separation between Cass' and Jake's stories.


1 comment:

  1. Well, I am HUGE fan of paranormal specially zombies
    Might read this sometime
    Your reader
    Soma
    http://insomnia-of-books.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for stopping by. I love comments, so please leave a few.