Alice In Zombieland By Gena Showalter

October 29, 2012

Mmmm...BRAINS! Seems like zombies are all the rage these days, right? I mean, every other person I see has oozing bloody wounds and is shambling along the sidewalk. Of course that could have something to do with Halloween being two days away, but I feel I can safely say that the walking dead are here to stay (ha ha, Walking Dead, ha, pun intended). And nowhere are they more popular than in the zombie fiction that's spreading like a virus at libraries, book stores, and online. The best zombie book I've read of late? Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter.

You may be familiar with this author already from her many paranormal romance series for adults and her Intertwined series for teens. Alice in Zombieland is the first in her new series, the White Rabbit Chronicles, with book two, Through the Zombieglass, due out hopefully next fall. When I picked this book up, I expected another Pride and Prejudice and Zombies—the classic story I already knew and loved, now fully loaded with ZOMBIES! Imagine my surprised when I discovered this book to contain a completely new imagining of zombies and the barest hints of resemblance to its namesake.

Sixteen-year-old Alice Bell is nearly destroyed when her entire family dies in a car accident at the very beginning of this book. The trauma of the experience leaves her seeing hallucinations she knows can't be real, and Ali doesn't know how she'll be able to function once school starts again. Enter the stunningly gorgeous, brutally dangerous, somewhat cliche (but really, who cares?!) bad boy, Cole Holland and his mysterious crew, and a refreshingly confident, sparklingly witty, bubbly and somehow not annoying at all best friend, Kat Parker and her disposable posse. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that Ali's "hallucinations" are, OF COURSE, more real than she could have ever expected, and the zombies in this book blow right past the standard flesh-devouring, need-to-be-shot-in-the-head rotting corpses we're used to. Who knew that malevolent spirit-eating beings could be so hard to kill?!

If you're looking for steamy romance, gruesomely evil zombies, and some fabulous, kick-butt heroines, I can't recommend Alice in Zombieland strongly enough. Call me addicted.

Erin's Bonus Features for Alice in Zombieland

Genre: adrenaline & romance
Mood: fierce
Song: "Trouble" by Bitter:Sweet
Readalikes: Hourglass by Myra McEntire; Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins
Website: The White Rabbit Chronicles

~Erin D.
Parkville Branch