Review : Married with Zombies

Married with Zombies by Jesse Petersen
Pages : 241
Genre : Horror, Humor
Series : Living with the Dead, Book 1
My Rating :

What it’s about :

David and Sarah’s relationship has had more downs than ups recently. As they head to their marriage counseling session, the couple face what could be the biggest “down” of their marriage : they find their counselor eating the previous client with determination. It’s the zombie apocalypse, and David and Sarah only have each other to count on. Can they salvage their relationship enough to survive?

My Thoughts :

Think of this as your classic zombie movie, on paper : there are gory scenes of zombie killing, running, fear, empty streets, and a touch of humor to balance the horror.

While the book brings little originality to the zombie archetype, it offers an interesting dynamic with David and Sarah’s relationship. Those two are bickering like you would expect a dysfunctional old couple to, even about the littlest things. The relationship is written with humor, which makes it enjoyable to follow through the story. It’s pretty clear early in the story that they’ll have to be a united front to survive the zombies, and watching them reconcile was a pleasant ride anyway. I love that they talked about their relationship without going too far in the romance type.

Their adventure is filled with action. The book doesn’t stay in one place long, and while I found most “twists” to be predictable, it kind of went in the same direction as a zombie movie would. You know, the moment in a movie when you just know a zombie is about to appear, and yet you still jump on your seat when it does? That’s what I mean. I also enjoyed that they encounter other survivors, who take different approaches to their new apocalyptic life. The story was constantly holding my interest because there was always something, or someone, happening.

As for the humor, I did have a couple of laughs. I enjoy simple things in life, and so the fact that each chapter is titled with an advice that could be quoted from “Fighting Zombies for the Married Dummies” cracked me up. Here are a couple of examples :

Chapter 3 : Put the small stuff into perspective. It’s better to be wrong and alive than right but eating brains.

Chapter 6 : You and your partner are on the same side. It’s the side of the living.

Without spoiling anything, I will say two things about the story : I enjoyed the cult plot and wished it could have lasted a little longer, because I could imagine so many story lines coming out of this. Also, the ending was a good mix of everything the characters went through in the book, but I loved to see how far David and Sarah had come.

All in all, a good read for these moments when you want a brainless (ha!) read with not too many surprises, but still entertaining.

Series reading order :

1. Married with Zombies
2. Flip this Zombie
3. Eat, Slay, Love (coming August 2011)