Customer Reviews

R.I.P.: A Zombie Novel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

R.I.P. has everything for the young adult looking for a fun, fast, gory but first-rate horror reading experience. Not only do you get a sharply humorous zombie story but Howe is also clever enough to weave a morality play within the scenes of carnage! Just what every growing boy and girl needs in today's morally corrupt society! Pick it up now, people!

This book really reminded me of the time I first discovered horror and zombies in the 1980s. I felt like it was part 'Return Of The Living Dead' and part a smattering of those fun and topical coming of age films from that era. Of course, it's got it's very own flavor as well. The story is unique and the writing is really smooth. It's not as pretentious and self-aware as a lot of the modern tongue in rotting cheek zombie fiction coming out. A pleasant surprise.

I was fortunate enough to read R.I.P. in manuscript form about a year ago. I'm not usually a reader of "Young Adult" novels, so imagine my surprise when I found myself diggin' every sentence. Although suitable for all ages (so long as the parents are cool with zombies and horror-related violence), there is nothing here to turn off adult readers. In fact, it's quite the reverse: R.I.P. re-awakened that joyful love of horror that I first felt when I discovered the genre as a kid. Not a simple task. It's incredibly difficult to find a book that satisfies the monster kid you once were and the adult horror fan you've become-- but Harrison Howe has crafted exactly that book. It's an extraordinarily fun book with something to say and a very clever way of saying it. Buy it for your kid. . . and then sneak it away after bedtime for your own enjoyment.

No one can screw you over like a best friend, especially if said friend is a zombie. Meet, Billy, an awkward, overweight boy who feeds the bullies of his school to his undead friend. At first, Billy and RIP's relationship is sound, but when RIP violates his trust, he must make a decision to rid the world of the one-true friend he has ever had, or grant forgiveness.

I wanted to give the book 3 stars because most of the one liners made this reader's eyes roll rather than instill laughter, and the violence fades out before it gets too gruesome. However, the book is aimed at a younger demographic so I cannot fault it for that and, of course, comedy is such a subjective matter, I shouldn't rate it by that. But, speaking as a writer, I cannot forgive the narrator interjection that pops up here and there in the text. So minus one point.

When all is said and done, I finished RIP hungry for more, so that shows Harrison Howe has the chops to carry a great story and though I found most of the jokes groan worthy, I still had an excellent time reading it. So do yourself a favor, and pick up RIP for yourself and/or your teenage kids. You'll thank me.

Billy Barton watched the falling star from his bedroom window and then made a wish. On the night of his twelfth birthday Billy wished for a friend. He was an overweight kid whose father had run off some years before, and who was relentlessly bullied in school. All he wished for that night, though, was a friend. That falling star was a meteorite that landed just a couple miles away from Billy's house, in a cemetery, cracking open and dripping a yellow pus-like substance into a grave.
Deke Donnelley was an astronomy student at a local state college who also watched the falling star that night. He tracked it to where it landed and went to find it. Deke was a geeky, skinny kid who was also bullied at school. He was hoping to make a major astronomical find and hopefully change the way people looked at him.
Jessica was a new girl in school that sat next to Billy....he was completely smitten. Was she the friend he had wished for? RIP was a corpse reanimated by the yellow ooze from the meteorite. He felt bad for Billy and had a proposition for him. Was he the friend Billy had wished for? Maybe this is a case of "be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it".
R.I.P. is a young adult novella about an awkward boy, the girl he loves, and a zombie. This was a fun story, full of the requisite horror, a fair amount of humor, and plenty of coming-of-age angst. It's a quick read, at only 91 pages, but any teen that's a fan of horror will like this book.

This book stands out in the current blitz of zombie fiction, distinguishing itself as not yet another apocalyptic use of the monster trope. Instead, author Howe chooses to take the zombie monster, and turn it on edge, and use it to plumb the depths of the story of a young boy, and how he reacts to the world around him. It's a story about an underdog, Billy Barton, who is tormented by his pre-teen peers, and as anyone who went through such experiences can tell you, the real monsters in this story isn't the walking dead man. Funny, fast paced, gruesome and poignant. A story sure to please both the young audience it is aimed at, and the savvy adult.

While Harrison Howe's R.I.P. is described as a `young adult' novel, don't let that categorization fool you. If I had read this book as a kid I would have crapped myself.

Easily digestible by teenagers, but filled with enough gut-spilling gore and heart-wrenching scenes to keep even the most hardcore horror fans satiated, R.I.P. is truly the perfect balance in serving up a quality horror story that damn near anyone, of any age, can enjoy. My hat's off to Howe for creating something special here.

There's a nice thread of humor throughout the book, which Howe deftly uses to keep us even further off-guard when things eventually turn nasty. The dark corners into which Howe takes us work wonderfully to balance out the lighter moments of the story. This book goes far beyond any simple moral lessons, but really takes us deeper into the sometimes gritty, sometimes sad, moments in all of our lives when we make the wrong choices.

Overall, R.I.P. was a terrifically fun, yet affecting book. It's a story that stays with you, and one that should remain on your shelf so it can be enjoyed by others, both young and old.

"all ages"...I must have missed those two words in the description. This is a book for kids. Totally disappointed. Great if you are 12...but waste of time if you are an "adult"