Book Review: Alice in Zombieland

Title: Alice in Zombieland.
Author: Gena Showalter.
Format: Hardback.
Pages: 404.
Series: Yes, #1.
Source: Library.
Publisher: Harlequin Teen.
Published Date: September 25 2012.
Summary:

"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…."

Links:
Goodreads
Barnes and Noble.

Cover:

So detailed and pretty; I love it! It really incorporates the whole Alice in Wonderland theme, with the blonde girl in the light blue dress, and the card symbols in each of the four corners!

(I also heard the UK copy was SHINY all over! Is that true?)

My Thoughts:

2012 has been over for almost four COMPLETE months, and I still haven't seen my very first zombie yet. Shucks! Since I don't think any of us will be experiencing any zombie encounters any time soon (unless you count that guy, who ate off that hobo guy's face off) I'll just write a zombie book review instead.

Alice in Zombieland...is exactly that. Alice, the main character, has always lived in fear of zombies...well kinda. She's lived her father's fear of zombies, she herself, has never seen one. From living in a zombie-proof-house to not being able to go out after dark, Alice is becoming frustrated and tired of living by her dad's rules.

After finally convincing her parents into going to her little sister's dance recital, Alice regrets asking, ever wanting to go, and never believing her dad, but instead thinking he was just crazy. The night of the recital, on their way home, Alice's mom loses control of the car, and flips the car completely over. As Alice regains consciousness , she realizes she's lost her family to hungry zombies, and wasn't able to protect her baby sister, like she always promised she would.

Having lost everything, Alice leaves her zombie-proof-house behind and moves in with her grandparents; where she'll live a whole new room, and attend a whole different high school (the high school that her parents graduated from).

Upon her arrival a very...rough looking boy (man?) catches her eye. From wearing combat boots to wearing scars on his face, he seems to be part of a fight club. Feeling this weird attraction towards him, and having visions of herself with him, Alice is confused as to why she's feeling this way.

Cole soon starts stalking talking with Alice more and more, asking her questions and telling her the same things she's heard from her dad millions of times; don't go out in the dark and don't go in the forest. Cole ends up not being a member of a fight club, but instead him and his (also rough looking) friends hunt zombies, explaining the scars on his face.When Alice knows this, she want's to join in, she wants revenge for having lost her entire family to zombies, she wants to prevent that pain from happening to someone else.

Don't get me wrong, when I say these next couple of things, because I really enjoyed Alice in Zombieland, but there were some times when I was just irritated with the way Alice and Cole acted at times. First off, why was Alice having visions? The reader never learns why this is happening. And why are Alice and Cole making out in the middle of the school hallway in most of them? Why?

Besides the whole "vision" things, the way Cole was acting through various parts in the book was bothersome to me also. At the beginning of the book, when Alice first sees Cole, he is this mysterious guy, a bad boy with pretty eyes, pretty hair, and takes the breath of every girl that sees him. Which I don't mind bad boys (AT ALL! Don't mind them!...actually really like them..anyways), but Cole quickly changes. In his first conversation with Alice he is already telling her what not to do, and that, that's the only way he could protect her. Protect her? You barely know her!

Later throughout the story, Cole continues on with his bad boy self, but once in a while he would say things that no normal teenage boy (in the real world) would say to a girl. He can get too dramatic at times, and it's just weird to listen to considering he's only known her, what? A month or two at the most?

Besides Alice's visions, and Cole's bossiness, and unrealistic sayings, Alice in Zombieland was AWESOME! I loved the concept behind it, and I love that Alice realizes that her dad wasn't crazy. I thought the story would tie back a bit more to the original story Alice in Wonderland, but the fact that it didn't, didn't really bother me. I really liked Alice (besides her weird visions), she was down to earth, and realistic. I also
liked Cole's ex-girlfriend, because she is put into the crazy ex-girlfriend category, but really she is just good friends with Cole, and cares about him as well as the rest of the group.

The ending was satisfying but also left me excited for the next book without an annoying cliffhanger! Loved it! Can't wait to see how Alice's journey continues!