A review by aimmyarrowshigh
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters
2.0
Generation Dead, Daniel Waters
The short review: The human characters are more lifeless than the zombies and for a world of undead teenagers, there's very little human intrigue.
The long thoughts: I was SO excited to read Generation Dead. I eyed the one copy left at B&N for weeks before I finally could justify buying it.I only buy paperbacks as a LAST RESORT. It's a thing. I want hardcovers or nothing, yo. I read it immediately.
And I was bored the whole way through.
The narrator has one character flaw -- and I mean a character development flaw on Waters' part -- that made it very difficult for me to get into her world, and that is that she has no reason to be the person she is. The narratorwhose name I've already forgotten; that's how boring this book is and how little it affected me is described as this fiercely goth girl, listens to heavy metal, befriends the Living Impaired, lives on the fringe even though her BFF is the quarterback of the football team and she's a hot little piece, according to every male character with or without blood flowing in the necessary directions.
And yet there is no reason for her to be that way. She doesn't think or narrate her world with any kind of POV that would make that choice make sense, so it becomes a trope of The Zombie Romance. OF COURSE the goth girl who listens to bands like Face-Eating Brain Scum would have a crush on the zombie. Obviously. I'm somehow unsurprised.
I wanted to be surprised by this book. I wanted to feel the differences and similarities between the living and the only-somewhat-dead, and I wanted to feel them viscerally. I didn't. And since so much of the media I consume is about, well, the not-quite-living-anymore, I have high standards for Life And Death Character Impetus, and I was sorely disappointed by GD.
The short review: The human characters are more lifeless than the zombies and for a world of undead teenagers, there's very little human intrigue.
The long thoughts: I was SO excited to read Generation Dead. I eyed the one copy left at B&N for weeks before I finally could justify buying it.
And I was bored the whole way through.
The narrator has one character flaw -- and I mean a character development flaw on Waters' part -- that made it very difficult for me to get into her world, and that is that she has no reason to be the person she is. The narrator
And yet there is no reason for her to be that way. She doesn't think or narrate her world with any kind of POV that would make that choice make sense, so it becomes a trope of The Zombie Romance. OF COURSE the goth girl who listens to bands like Face-Eating Brain Scum would have a crush on the zombie. Obviously. I'm somehow unsurprised.
I wanted to be surprised by this book. I wanted to feel the differences and similarities between the living and the only-somewhat-dead, and I wanted to feel them viscerally. I didn't. And since so much of the media I consume is about, well, the not-quite-living-anymore, I have high standards for Life And Death Character Impetus, and I was sorely disappointed by GD.