7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Zombies!, August 28, 2010
This review is from: Married with Zombies (Living with the Dead, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
I LOVED this book! It was light-hearted yet serious at times and there was always something to keep me interested!
I enjoyed the main characters (who seem like that typical "growing up and apart" couple) as I followed their adventures of slaying zombies and saving their marriage.
It definitely isn't your usual zombie book! It'll make you laugh out loud at times as the author's sense of humor comes shining through. At other times you'll see a whole different serious side of a "zombie" plaque. Yes, I was weeping at times.
It's certainly a multi-dimensional story (as in it's not just about zombies people!) that will keep you reading straight through to the end. I know I can't wait for book 2!
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fast, fun, and a nice change of pace for zombie fans, September 7, 2010
This review is from: Married with Zombies (Living with the Dead, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
Sarah and David are a normal American couple on the verge of divorce, until something extraordinary happens to save their marriage--the zombie apocalypse. They're barely hanging onto their relationship by going to couples counseling sessions, but one morning they walk in to find their marriage counselor chowing down on some earlier clients. Suddenly, the little annoyances and petty squabbles don't matter so much to Sarah and David, not when they're faced with hordes of the ravenous undead.
This has got to be the cutest zombie book I've ever read. It's hard to stay sorrowful for too long when the protagonists are offing zombies in such funny ways; they attack their first zombie with a letter-opener, and dispatch it with a few well-aimed whacks of a high-heeled shoe, and another zombie is disabled by a Dr. Phil self-help book. And though I did get a little weepy toward the end of the book, the horror and gravitas of a zombie plague aren't emphasized too heavily. It's a romantic comedy, heavy on the comedy and light on the romance, with hilarious back-and-forth mood switches, where our heroes will kill a zombie or three, then argue about their musical preferences (she's a music snob, he still likes 80's rock) and bicker over whether their therapist' marriage advice is still relevant--Sarah maintains, "Just because she tried to eat us doesn't mean she was wrong" (pg 20).
The zombies are fairly traditional: Red-eyed, black bile spewing, physically strong but decomposing, closer to slow-zombies than fast-zombies because they're capable of both shambling and awkward running, can only be killed by head wounds, full zombification is complete about ten minutes after the first bite, and the virus originated in some university lab and spread like wildfire. Well-known territory, but in some ways it makes the story more enjoyable because you know the parameters you're dealing with.
For a long time, I sympathized with David much more than with Sarah, the POV character, because even though they're both unhappy and under a lot of stress early on, she tends to get more outright verbally aggressive, while David is low-key and honestly pretty cool. Every time Sarah had twinges of appreciation for him and began to fall back in love, I was terribly happy because he's a decent guy with no more than the usual amount of flaws. The two of them are outright awesome when they begin to really work together, dropping zombies by using available materials and combining their growing knowledge of what works and what doesn't work for survival.
Turns out, killing the undead is a great bonding activity, and apocalypses are good for strengthening relationships even as they unweave the fabric of society at large. Sarah and David need each other now, while before they were coexisting with no real goals and nothing worthy to pursue. I wish that I had a better sense of who they were and what their strengths, quirks, and dreams were before the zombie plague, but it's a very short novel with not a lot of time for really delving into emotional depths. I have big hopes that they'll get more fleshed-out in the second book, Flip This Zombie, since all the "how it all started" stuff will be set up already.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Petersen does for zombies what Davidson does for vampires!, September 16, 2011
First, let me start by saying that, while I have seen a few zombie movies, they usually aren't my style. Too gory, too creepy, too close to something that could actually happen. I love paranormal books but I generally shy away from zombies. When I first saw this book listed somewhere (I don't even remember where now), I read the description. It grabbed me, and attracted me right away. I started reading the paperback copy I had gotten and after the first few pages, I knew it was something even my husband would enjoy (and he does NOT read). I handed him my copy to take with him to National Guard training and downloaded the Kindle version.
I loved it! I didn't want to put it down. While it did give me the creeps a few times, most of the time I was just sucked in and didn't want to put it down. The characters of Sarah and David are interesting, likeable, and I found myself rooting for them from the start. The other characters (the non-zombie ones!) were also interesting and I hope we may find out what happened to one of them later on.
The storyline is believable enough to give me the creeps! Even though I finished the book two days ago, I still find myself wondering what I'd grab if we needed to flee zombies. LOL The nice thing is, Ms. Petersen takes zombies and actually injects humor into the story. I wasn't a huge fan of vampires until I read MaryJanice Davidson's "Undead" series--while this book isn't as "slapstick", it still reminded me in style of Ms. Davidson's books by taking a normally "scary" genre and making it a more fun series.
The ending of the book was good, and it left me wanting to read the next one in the series. I want to know what's going to happen to Sarah and David. Will they ever team up with anyone else? Will they find any more of their friends or family safe? Will the country overcome the zombie plague, or will it be the end of the world? I would (and have) recommend this to anyone looking for a new take on zombies!
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