Reviews Literature / World War Z

Really Good Book

This book was an enjoyable read, so much so that I've re-read it several times and I've even gotten some of my friends who are not-so into the zombie genre to read it and they liked it too. I really like how the narrative, while it does focus on what's going on in the United States, has some international prescriptive. There's still some unanswered questions, such as "How did the Canadians feel about everyone fleeing to Northern Canada?" and "How did Australia fare during the war?" Actually, I guess you could wonder that about any country that didn't get a heavy focus.

It's also interesting about how while there is some blood and guts type horror due to it being a zombie novel, there's some other scary stuff, like plenty of Adult Fears (it's implied that parents killing their children to spare them from being eaten alive by the zombies was a common thing), and just the general collapse of society. The nightmare fuel page goes into detail.

As for claims about realism, I doubt that Max Brooks is seriously claiming that zombies that he presents in this book could actually exist, but that it's entirely possible for most of the world's governments to screw up in containing such a threat. Just look at how the world governments responded to AIDS.