YMMV / Generation Dead

• Fridge Logic - The differently biotic teens are not allowed to get/keep driver's licenses or to vote (because they're dead in the eyes of the law), but they do attend school.
  • ...though the only place we do see them attending school, in fairness, is in Oakvale, which is either in Oregon or Washington state, which lean relatively progressive in the real world. It's worth noting that at one point in the second book, they're banned from attending school, something a certain protagonist decides he's not going to take sitting down. They're also generally forced to take remedial classes (not specially-adjusted-for-zombies classes, mind you; regular classes, only remedial), because their "differently biotic" state makes them so slow to respond to questions in class. Which really sucks for kids like Colette, who were previously honor students.
• Fridge Brilliance - The "differently biotic" thing works as a metaphor for about a million different things... oh sure, this being a YA novel series, you probably figured out "being a teenager, where the world treats you like something between a monster and an idiot, even when you feel you're neither" was one of them, since it's blatantly obvious. You probably also picked up on the fact that it mimics learning disorders or other mental or physical handicaps, and if you didn't catch the "zombie becomes the fantasy equivalent of the n-word" connection that makes it verge on looking like a metaphor for flat-out racism, you should be drinking more coffee. But did anybody else suddenly have it hit them that Adam Layman, who unlike many of the other zombie kids, was considered an all-American white bread Good Kid and pillar of the community, and died saving the life of another person is virtually the perfect fantasy analogue for Ryan White? Yes, you read that right: zombies can be a metaphor for AIDS sufferers now. Oh, and let's not forget all the talk of people like Karen, who can "pass" for normal humans (and do, in order to get and keep a job for instance), which can be interpreted as going along with the "racism" metaphor (in the real world many Jews, Hispanics, etc. can and have "passed" for "white")... or, you know, closeted homosexuality (especially given that Karen's pretty much openly admitted to having a crush on Phoebe and as of Passing Strange, is canonically gay. She was in love with a girl named Monica before she died and came back.)..