Published September 25th, 2012Harlequin Teen
404 pages (Hardcover)
She won’t rest until she’s sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever.
Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that’s all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.
Her father was right. The monsters are real….
To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies….
I wish I could go back and do a thousand things differently.
I'd tell my sister no.
I'd never beg my mother to talk to my dad.
I'd zip my lips and swallow those hateful words.
Or, barring all of that, I'd hug my sister, my mom and my dad one last time.
I'd tell them I love them.
I wish... Yeah, I wish. (From Goodreads)
This book has been sitting on my shelf for so long. Let's just say I am glad that I finally gave it a shot.
Alice in Zombieland was NOT what I expected. I was expecting it to be more of a Alice In Wonderland retelling, but besides the references to the original story, it is an entity of it's own.
The world-building was great. There is this complexity to the world that felt very straight-forward. We've got these zombies that only certain people have the ability to see. After her parents death, Ali gains the ability to see these zombies and eventually joins a crew of zombie fighters. There are complexities in how the zombies are seen and killed, as well as the visions, that left me semi-confused, but the world just worked for me.
This book is engaging from the very first page. The first chapter/prologue thing drew me in and I never turned back. I also liked the balance here of action, development, and sexytime. The action wasn't spectacular, but I truly enjoyed it. The development of the plot and characters throughout the book worked really well. As for the sexytime, you can tell this isn't the first rodeo for Gena Showalter. I felt interested and engaged throughout the novel.
I was a fan of these characters. The only issue I really had was with Emma, and it was that the dialogue didn't fit with an eight-year old. Clearly, that is a very minor issue. I'm really excited to see Ali develop through future books. She has the potential to be a kickass heroine and I'm excited to see her character grow and reach her potential. Even more though, I loved Kat. Snark. Snark snark snark snark SNARK. I just love the humor and level of sincere friendship her character brings. Finally, let's just take a moment to acknowledge the pure hotness that is Cole. Like I said, this isn't Gena Showalter's first rodeo. Cole is a hot douchebag at times, but then he does something and I just could not hate him.
