Customer Reviews

Zombies vs. Unicorns

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been looking forward to this one for awhile. I had read books by some of the authors, but not all - there are a lot of stories in this one! The running commentary from Black & Larbalestier was funny, too. I think I'd have to give it to Team Zombie, in the end, but I did find a few Unicorn stories that I liked.

The Highest Justice by Garth Nix - haven't read any Nix books before. This one has a unicorn and a zombie, so maybe its best that it starts the collection. I liked it, not spectacular but still a good one.

Love Will Tear Us Apart by Alaya Dawn Johnson - half-zombie boy falls for boy who has his own killer secrets; I liked this one, it drew me in and although the zombie-mind is not a happy one, I found myself rooting for them.

Purity test by Naomi Novik - Loved this one, very funny. A unicorn needs a virgin to help it on its quest to save baby unicorns, although capable warrior virgins are hard to find.

Bougainvillea by Carrie Ryan - set in the world of Forest of Hands and Teeth, although with different characters. I can't say that I liked the main character, but she felt very real (which was probably the unsettling part). I liked the end.

A Thousand Flowers by Margo Lanagan - for me the most disturbing, about what happens after the unicorn and virgin meet up. Not sure how I feel about this one. The prose was well done, but the subject matter if you thought about it too much was icky.

The Children of the Revolution by Maureen Johnson - this one was all right, taking its cues from entertainment gossip; a student on the vacation from hell finds herself caring for the children of a famous, mysterious celebrity. But something isn't quite right with those kids...

The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn by Diana Peterfreund - Set in the same world as her Rampant series. This one was good, but it felt unfinished, too rushed.

Inoculata by Scott Westerfeld - I haven't read anything by this author, but he is going on my TBR list. Good story about the kids who grow up after the zombie apocalypse, and what happens when a chance mutation gives them a second chance. I won't look at boredom quite the same way...

Princess Prettypants by Meg Cabot - Liz dreams of getting her own car for her 17 birthday, and ends up with a unicorn. Then she finds out just how handy a unicorn can be, Fun story - especially when she deals with her ex and the bully.

Cold Hands by Cassandra Clare - this one was OK. In a town where the dead come back, Adele and her love are parted by death, for a little while.

The Third Virgin by Kathleen Duey - this one was just OK too, a darker unicorn story, with a beast addicted to life - taking it that is.

Prom Night by Libba Bray - Another good one, a mixture of hope and moments of happiness in a hopeless situation.

In case you were wondering, I am Team Zombie. Now that that's out of the way, I have to say that I really loved all the stories. This anthology has such a great collection of authors. Most of the stories I was wishing they were their own 300 page book because the stories were THAT good.

Now back to why I'm Team Zombie. I am a vampire fan and Zombie's are pretty effing close. Plus, here in Minnesota we have this thing called the Zombie Pub Crawl where I believe there was over 13,000 zombies this year? Yeah. We Minnesotans love our zombies. I have gone been a zombie for the crawl twice and I also attended a minor league baseball game as a zombie on zombie night. So being that I have been undead and eaten brains, I can attest to how awesome zombies are. So there is no way I could be anything but Team Zombie.

Unicorns are a bit of a rarity. I never see them at halloween and the only time I ever see them are in those 50 cent sticker machines at like Denny's. That doesn't make them less cool though. They just don't get the attention they deserve. They are elegant, mysterious and fart rainbows! And rainbows are bad ass. Just ask the Double Rainbow guy. He even cried at their awesomeness (see the YouTube video if you don't know who I'm talking about.)

Anyway, back to this book... There isn't really much I can say unless I go into every single story so just trust me when I say this is a MUST read. :)

"Since the dawn of time one question has dominated all others: Zombies or Unicorns?" Thus begins this highly enjoyable anthology by 12 of today's top teen writers. While each story is a star in its own right, perhaps the most entertaining part of the book is the snarky dialogue between editors Black and Larbalestier in which each promotes her view of the vices and virtues of the disparate beasts.

You may be surprised to read that some unicorns are killer creatures and not the sweet horned-horse that little girls love, while some zombies are loyal and loving, capable of meaningful long-term relationships! The stories are as different from one another as are the authors. There's Carrie Ryan's, "Bougainvillea," set in the world of her "The Forest of Hands and Teeth," in which zombies may very well win the world; Kathleen Duey's, "The Third Virgin," in which we meet the unicorn that steals part of a person's life while giving some of it back; Libba Bray's, "Prom Night," and Scott Westerfield's, "Inoculata."

The book came into being as the result of a series of blogs between the editors, perhaps the first book to be born of blogging (or at least the best if not the first). Fun to read, disturbing at times, I raced through this innovatively-jacketed book in a couple of days wishing for more. So who wins? Zombies or unicorns? Each reader will have to decide. I preferred the darker zombie stories, yet would much rather meet a unicorn!

Connie Goldsmith, Children's Book Reviewer for,
California Kids, a Sacramento regional parenting magazine

When I saw that an anothology was being released called Zombies vs. Unicorns I had to read it. I am a big fan of both and wanted to see which lent itself to the better stories. I got an Advanced Reading Copy of this book through Book It Forward ARC Tours. It is a very fun and creative premise for an anthology and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

There is a short preamble before each story in which the editors (Larbalestier and Black) take sides on debating the positives and negatives of each mythological (can you call zombies mythological?) creature. These little mini-debates are hilarious and had me laughing out loud. There are six zombie stories and six unicorn stories. They are labeled with a unicorn or zombie on the top corner of the page so that haters of either creature can skip the offensive stories if they want too. I have to say that overall based on the stories team unicorn won this one. There are a ton of creative unicorn stories in here. There are also a couple very creative zombie stories, but most of the zombie stories tend toward the classic small group of isolated humans fighting against a mass of zombie with limited resources.

The biggest highlight for me in the zombie arena was "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Loved this story it was creative and well-written. The biggest highlights in the unicorn arena were "The Highest Justice" by Garth Nix (a very solid fantasy), "Purity Test" by Naomi Novik (unicorn story with a bit of an urban fantasy twist to it), "The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn" by Diana Peterfreund (love this world and the dangerous unicorns), and "Princess Prettypants" by Meg Carbot (very ironic and fun).

I struggle a bit with this being a young adult anthology. There is a ton of swearing in a couple of the stories and some bestiality in one of them (implied not explicit).

Overall though I really enjoyed it and found myself tearing through these stories at a fast clip. An above average collection of stories and I loved the way the book was put together, it was just so much fun. The only thing lacking was a brief bio on each author at the end of the story to let us know what other books/stories they had written. See below for a brief review/description of each story included.

- The Highest Justice by Garth Nix (4.5/5)
Great fantasy story about a young girl who gets the help of a unicorn to avenge her mother's death. I liked it a lot.

- Love Will Tear Us Apart by Alaya Dawn Johnson (5/5)
Very funny story about a part zombie who falls in love with a zombie hunter and can't decide whether to eat him or love him. This was hilarious and very well done.

- Purity Test by Naomi Novik (5/5 stars)
A story about a unicorn who takes an uncoventional approach to getting a young girl to help him solve the crime of some missing unicorn babies. Again another very funny story filled with irony.

- Bougainvillea by Carrie Ryan (3/5 stars)
A more conventional zombie story about a young woman whose father is dictator of a Zombie-free island. Personally I found it to be a bit too serious and a little boring. The main character is okay but the story is fairly typical.

- A Thousand Flowers by Margo Lanagan (4/5 stars)
This was an interesting story about a Princess who is found ravished on the shore. When a man is wrongly blamed for her condition, what we find out about the Princess's lover is disturbing to say the least. This is mainly a fantasy story and overall it was well-written and I enjoyed it.

- The Children of Revolution by Maureen Johnson (4/5 stars)
This was also a somewhat disturbing story about a college student who is hired to take care of some...well...rather mentally strange children. Kind of funny and a lot creepy, I enjoyed this story and the style it was written in.

- The Care and Feeing of Your Baby Killer Unicorn by Diana Peterfreund (5/5 stars)
Loved this story. Those of your who haven't read her book Rampant should because it is awesome. This story takes place in the same world and involves a young woman learning how to take care of a killer baby unicorn. Very well done, lots of fun, and a great story. This is one to tide you over until you can read Ascendant, the next book by Peterfreund about killer unicorns.

- Inoculata by Scott Westerfeld (4/5 stars)
Another story about your typical man-eating zombies and a small group of humans surviving in the wilderness. This story has a bit of a twist to is that makes it a bit more interesting. Overall very readable and I enjoyed it.

- Princess Prettypants by Meg Carbot (5/5 stars)
This was a very fun story about a cloned pretty-princess-type unicorn who is given to the main character for her birthday. Well, the unicorn ends up being more than just another pretty face. This story was very readable, funny, and I enjoyed it a ton.

- Cold Hands by Cassandra Clare (4/5 stars)
This was a story about a town where the dead come back to life. The main character is determined to follow through on her relationship with her boyfriend even though he is killed and comes back...cold. I didn't like the characters much and the story was pretty serious, but the concept was kind of neat and it was overall a good read.

- The Third Virgin by Kathleen Duey (4/5 stars)
This was a disturbing unicorn story about a unicorn who grows addicted to sucking years of life from the people he heals. It takes meeting the right virgin for him to give everything another go. An interesting look at unicorns as a sympathetic villain of sorts. I enjoyed it.

- Prom Night by Libba Bray (3/5 stars)
Another story about an isolated group of people trying to survive world zombie infestation. The only difference is that this time only teens survived and it's prom night. This was okay, but not all that different from a lot of other "zombies taking over the world" stories that I have read.

You've read zombie stories. so many that Holly Black should pay you to be reviewing this book for her. Unicorns? I don't touch the stuff. Too girly and fart rainbows. Boy was I wrong. Every zombie story was pretty much the same, don't get me wrong they were REALLY good. However, the Unicorn stories were far more interesting to me, having little to no background on such virgin chasing vestibules of virtue. Each one was different in a unique way and gripped me in a different way than most of the zombie stories. I loved both sets of stories in the book, fyi.

Zombies vs Unicorns alternates: a story involving a unicorn, then a story involving a zombie, and so on.

The stories have a wide range from humorous to serious, light to heavy. I didn't like all the stories, but now, 8 months after listening to the audio book, I can remember about half the stories clearly and liked enough of them that I'm pretty happy about the time I spent listening to the audio book.

This is a good solid bet for short stories. If this book looks at all interesting then I recommend you go for it!

Why I read this: I had to, I love stories about Unicorns and Zombies.

Stories: There is a diverse and brilliant group of writers in this anthology. Each of the stories amazed me and ranged from love stories to brutal horror stories. I loved each of the stories and it makes me wonder why I don't read more anthologies.

Dialogue: The commentary between Justine and Holly was hilarious. I was guffawing like mad and my husband gave me the "You are weird look" as I read this book. Justine was the more brutally honest, competitive commenter - one that rooted hard for the Zombies. Holly was definitely a bit nicer with her comments and even admitted that she does like zombies - a little bit. As of fan of both creatures I found it highly amusing to read.

Favorite story: This was a tough choice, but I'd have to go with Prom Night by Libba Bray.

Team Unicorn or Zombie: Still undecided - I just like both way too much to decide.

I loved every story in this book! some of them were a bit confusing but allot of them were very funny and amusing. My favorite story was a unicorn story but i have to say overall i am team zombie, sorry Holly.

I never really recognized a competition between the two factions (this isn't pirates and ninjas, after all), but as an eclectic reader who loves both high fantasy and grungy zombies, I got everything I wanted out of this collection. Each of the tales stands well on its own and often challenges perceptions about their respective genres, making unicorns dangerous and malevolent and zombies relatable and even sweet. Good, solid authors lend their perspective and talents to unique stories that cross literary boundaries left and right, and everything is a little surprising. A great pleasure; make another one, please!

This anthology takes on two teams: One for zombies and one for...you guessed it, unicorns! Each team offers a convincing argument through short stories, clever plots, and all things zombies & unicorns. That's right ladies and gents...you're getting a two-for-one deal with this clever novel.

With zombie short stories such as "Love Will Tear Us Apart," "Cold Hands" and "Prom Night," zombie lovers will be intrigued to continue shifting through, first reading the zombie stories and then being lured into the unicorns. But do not be fooled, these aren't your mama's unicorns! Readers will be pleased with Meg Cabot's "Princess Prettypants," Naomi Novik's "Purity Test" and Diana Peterfreund's "The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn."

The anthology also includes a delightful introduction on which is better (zombies or unicorns) by the creators, Justine Larbalestier (team zombie) and Holly Black (team unicorn). "If you're strong enough to read through all the stories, you will know by the end of this anthology which is better: zombies or unicorns."