"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 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." - Alice In Zombieland by Gena Showalter, back-cover description
Hello, fellow nerds!
Today's review is all about Gena Showalter's Alice In Zombieland.
I read this, the first novel of the White Rabbit Chronicles, about two weeks ago. But I've been reading Showalter's other work for quite some time. Granted, those were more, ahem, adult novels.
I'm usually leery of those kinds of cross-overs from such sorts of authors to YA and the other way as well. It can be hit or miss.
Let me just say, this book hit it.
Like, out-of-the-park-hit-it for me.
I'll throw out a ***SPOILER ALERT*** if you haven't read it, yet.
The book starts off with Alice, a seemingly ordinary teenage girl. She wants what all teens want, freedom from the restricting parental rules enforced upon all the household. I get it. Very identifiable.
Though we are, at this time, only a chapter or so in, I have already developed connections and understandings of the characters. From Emma, Alice's younger sister, to the parents, themselves. To be drawn to the protagonist is something I'm used to, but being almost instantly connected to everyone already? Ding! Points for that, Showalter.
I shed a tear or two during the accident scene and the few pages after it, I'll admit.
Alice then becomes 'Ali', a quieter, more somber girl who sees the monsters that her father had always ranted about. She is transferred to her maternal grandparents' care and befriends a local girl named Kat.
And, of course, when the first day of school arrives, guess who the pair of besties run into? None other than the mysteriously intriguing bad-boy gang lead by the infamous Cole Holland.
Awkward eye-contact, weird shenanigans, and dumb-founded hallway-loitering ensue.
Now, I know I should be used to the whole 'star-crossed-lovers-meet-eyes-and-instantly-know' shin-dig, but, honestly....I'd really like any book like this more if the whole plot line was jolted by something other than instant-love-just-add-eye-contact. Okay? Okay.
Ali eventually befriends Cole and, yes, they become an item.
Cole and his gang of miscreants turn out to be just like Ali and her late father; able to see the very same monsters that now plague Ali.
Jealousy, teen-age back-stab-ery, and some plot-moving ensue.
Cole trains Ali in the art of killing the monsters, the big baddies are introduced.
There are wonderful little nuggets of action and fights sprinkled throughout the book. And they're fairly well-written sequences, as well. At no point did I stop and think, That really could not be physically possible. Ding, ding!
When I first began reading, I was under the impression that this book was going to be a re-telling of Alice In Wonderland but with, you know, zombies. It made me hesitant, since I never particularly cared for either the original work or film adaptions.
But, boy! Showalter takes just the right little bits from the old and makes something new and amazing. Ding, ding, ding!
Second, I was very excited with the monsters/zombies depicted in the story.
I found, for me, at least, having the zombies as incorporeal spirits to most of the human population that could attack without your even knowing or sensing them, absolutely terrifying. I do not recommend reading this one during a power-outage, no sir. Ding, ding, ding, ding!
If you combine the classic love-sap, scary new zombies, cool super-powers, and fantastic characters, you get one hell of a book.
I'll for sure give Alice In Zombieland three and a half stars out of five!
Pick it up and give it a read!