‘Alice in Zombieland’ review

Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For some reason, I thought this was going to be more fantasy based, with a whole new world created. But this was set in the everyday world, just with a new twist on zombies, which for the record I loved.

Alice has lived all her life thinking her dad is crazy. He believes there are zombies out there that only he can see and they will devour you if they catch you. But they only come out at night. Which means once darkness falls, none of Alice’s family are allowed out. On Alice’s birthday, she manages to persuade her father to attend her little sister’s ballet recital and that’s when it all goes wrong. There’s a car crash, zombies attack and Alice is the only survivor.

The traumatic event leads to Alice being able to see Zombies and with the realisation that her father wasn’t insane, Alice finds others who can also see Zombies and joins their Slayer organisation. But the Zombies seem to be attracted to Alice and no one knows why. And can Alice master her Slayer abilities before she’s devoured whole?

There was a fantastic voice in this book. Seriously fun and entertaining. I found myself laughing along with some of the banter between the characters. It was so refreshing to see a main character have just as much personality as her bubbly best friend. Some of their dialogue was a little overboard, but mainly it was great.

The chemistry between Alice and the love interest, Cole, was steaming. He was a little aggressive (okay, a lot) and sometimes came across quite rapist like. But it wasn’t serious and I knew it was all banter. I do think his personality is going to rub a lot of readers up the wrong way though.

There was a few things I couldn’t quite find believable. Alice’s family are all killed and she goes to school a few months later and barely thinks about it again, except as ‘motivation’ to join this Slayer organisation. Her grandparents were a little too out there, and rather than find them funny, I felt myself rolling my eyes more often than not. The ‘friends’ weren’t really moulded too well either (except Kat) and they really didn’t need to be there much. I had no idea what any of the friends looked like.

But what I did like was that Alice suffered. People died. She got injured. Though she was all powerful and special, she struggled and she struggled a lot. Not everyone warmed to her right away and she continuously needed to prove herself with witty and condescending comments. I didn’t quite buy her tough girl act. I mean, she’s used to be locked up in her house and won’t stand up to her parents but she can rage war on the most feared girl at her school?

The beginning of the book didn’t match the middle of the book (with almost different characters!) but I did really enjoy this and was entertained from start to finish. I would really recommend this book to urban fantasy lovers out there because it’s refreshing different and has great characters. 5 stars.

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