Retro Friday Review: Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

Retro Friday is a meme hosted by Angieville where you spotlight an older title on Fridays.

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters puts a romantic spin on the zombie troupe. Teenagers born after a certain date can come back to life after the day because of the chemicals in their food. However, not everyone comes back. Anyways, the differently biotic aka the zombie kids are discriminated against and people are totally not accepting of them. Oakvale High decides to blaze some trails and let the zombie kids come to school.

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters Book Cover, Cheerleader

Generation Dead

Phoebe, goth girl begins to fall for one of the differently biotic, Tommy Williams who is the  top dog as far as the dead kids go. Unfortunately for Adam, Phoebe’s next door neighbor football player, who has had a crush on her for pretty much forever. Much of the focus of the book is on Phoebe’s blossoming relationship with Tommy and then Adam’s reaction to it.

Okay, so the blurb on this says Generation Dead is a combination of John Green and Stephanie Meyers. Guys that blurb is a dirty rotten filthy liar. I read this book last August, and frankly, it’s nothing like Stephanie Meyer or John Green. First, I find that both authors write compulsively readable books, as in you can’t put them down. I could put Generation Dead down very easily. In fact it took me something like a week to read and it’s only 392 pages.

Further, I barely cared about any of the characters. I found this book so hard to connect with. You ever feel like maybe you are being held at arm’s length? Yep, that is how I felt.

It’s not that the writing is terrible or anything, it’s just not nearly as quirky as John Green or as enticing as Stephanie Meyer. And guys, when a book is described as pretty much awesome, I expect to not be able to put it down. Not to wander away from it to watch TV or eat bon bons.

I’m not sure I’d recommend this book. Maybe if you’re really into zombies.

Disclosure: Purchased copy.

Other Reviews:

Laina Has Too Much Spare Time
Chick Loves Lit
Parajunkee’s View

Purchase Generation Dead by Daniel Waters (kindle version is 6.99 as of 7/1/2011*FYI I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you if you buy things from Amazon after clicking link. Proceeds used for upkeep of site

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April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.
About April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

Comments

  1. oh geez, seriously. “This book is The Hunger Games meets Harry Potter” or “John Green meets Stephenie Meyer”….blurbs like that are absolutely ridiculous. Why do people think its a compliment to tell authors they’ve just written something exactly like an already published book anyway? “Congrats, you are not at all original!”

  2. I have actually been looking forward to reading this book. Bummer! I am currently pretty into zombie books, but now I’m not so sure about this one. I kind of felt the same way about Warm Bodies. It was totally put downable for me. Thanks for such an honest review of it!

  3. Thanks for an honest review. I think the same way, if I can think about other things I could be doing instead of concentrating on what I am reading, it’s not an awesome book.

  4. the bar was set too high with that author comparison. i went in with super duper low expectations and ended up liking it more than i expected. Phoebe was almost two-dimensional, but her whole non-traditional look thing helped give her some depth for me. plus she was rallying for a group that wasn’t getting represented so i was all about her social activism etc.
    i hear you though re: not as compelling as John or Steph.