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A review by wyrmdog
Zom-B by Darren Shan
3.0
This book really surprised me. I got 2 previous Shan series' for my son and I know he loved them both, so when I saw this, I figured on giving it a shot. I'm glad I did.
What's interesting about this book is that more than half of it is an exploration of how hate can seep into the hearts and actions of people that don't really believe that way, how we can become monsters without realizing it, how we can be utterly convinced that we are good people and behave in utterly inhuman fashion.
I don't know if these themes will continue, and I saw that there are 12 books in the series, which is interesting given how this book ended. But it's clear that to make this go, there will have to be many twists and turns.
I don't normally think to read YA books (funny, given I so recently read a Lloyd Alexander book, and have plans to read more). Most of them are utter garbage, full of inanity and idiocy and authorial hypocrisy and forgetting that teenaged readers have the capacity for far more nuance than most YA authors give them credit for. But then I read reviews and realize that yes, indeed, most people in general have difficulty with complex topics.
I didn't expect to find the depth I discovered in this book. While most of the characters are disposable and treated with more than a little narrative contempt, there is also a clear and complex portrayal of the value of self-examination, for the greater need to see beyond ourselves, to understand the way our actions and beliefs and fears and ideas of identity can make the world better or worse.
Make no mistake, the main character is contemptible, but also more than a bit relatable to any of us because even though B struggles with a very specific set of issues, we all have similar ones, regardless of our backgrounds and the situations we find ourselves in. No one is completely villainous and no one is completely virtuous, but our beliefs and our identities and our determination to embrace or reject those troublesome parts of ourselves make a big difference in who and what we become, and Zom-B leans right into it.
I think maybe I'll give this series a go because there's obviously more here than I suspected before starting.
What's interesting about this book is that more than half of it is an exploration of how hate can seep into the hearts and actions of people that don't really believe that way, how we can become monsters without realizing it, how we can be utterly convinced that we are good people and behave in utterly inhuman fashion.
I don't know if these themes will continue, and I saw that there are 12 books in the series, which is interesting given how this book ended. But it's clear that to make this go, there will have to be many twists and turns.
I don't normally think to read YA books (funny, given I so recently read a Lloyd Alexander book, and have plans to read more). Most of them are utter garbage, full of inanity and idiocy and authorial hypocrisy and forgetting that teenaged readers have the capacity for far more nuance than most YA authors give them credit for. But then I read reviews and realize that yes, indeed, most people in general have difficulty with complex topics.
I didn't expect to find the depth I discovered in this book. While most of the characters are disposable and treated with more than a little narrative contempt, there is also a clear and complex portrayal of the value of self-examination, for the greater need to see beyond ourselves, to understand the way our actions and beliefs and fears and ideas of identity can make the world better or worse.
Make no mistake, the main character is contemptible, but also more than a bit relatable to any of us because even though B struggles with a very specific set of issues, we all have similar ones, regardless of our backgrounds and the situations we find ourselves in. No one is completely villainous and no one is completely virtuous, but our beliefs and our identities and our determination to embrace or reject those troublesome parts of ourselves make a big difference in who and what we become, and Zom-B leans right into it.
I think maybe I'll give this series a go because there's obviously more here than I suspected before starting.