MischaS_'s Reviews > World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

So, I've seen the movie several times when it was on TV, and I have to say that I even watched a scene or two a couple of dozen times on Youtube. Yes, the action and visuals are fantastic. (Okay, except the one where the guy tears his own tooth, yuck!)
But after reading the comments where people were angry at the movie, saying that it does not hold a candle to the book, I knew I had to read it.
And yes, I do agree that the only things the movie took from the book were the zombies and Israel building a wall. Oh, and the title.

Right away, I was very surprised by the format of this book; it was not all what I was expecting. And the more I think about it; I believe it would be better if I picked up an audiobook instead of a book. Yeah, shocking, I never thought I would say such a thing.
Every interview is done with a different person, so, soon I stopped paying attention to their names, so when they again appeared later in the book I had a hard time connecting them with their previous chapters.

Also, like one third into the book, I got stuck after several boring chapters where I seriously considered DNFing this book, but then I pushed through, and yes, it was worth it.

I loved that we got to see how so many different parts of the world battled with the zombies. The different approaches, what do to the countries, did they go all savage? Did they bomb their own people? Did they just lose all control? That was fantastic to watch.

And surprisingly, this book made me even laugh! I just loved the boy who almost missed the zombies because he was focused on his computer. I did not expect that.

That's the one thing you can always depend on; as we're fighting on war, we're always preparing for the next one.

I did not very much grasp how they were suddenly able to fight the zombies when they previously failed with much better equipment but alright. But I have to say that zombie cleaning is funny to imagine. Especially of those underwater, I bet it will be fun if a zombie managed to get stuck in the Mariana Trench.

However, the scene I was sort of hoped for was post-war when some scientists have a zombie in a lab for studying, that would be fantastic! I honestly would love to see some experiments on these creatures. The book stated that it seemed that the state of the zombies deteriorated, but I wonder what would happen if they maybe starved for years. So many possibilities!

What sort of surprised me is that I expected that when the humans would go so close to extinction that the environment would get better, no factories running, no one is dumping anything in the water etc. but it was otherwise and it sort of made sense! There had to be so many fires; it's terrifying to imagine. But I wonder about the impact of all those nukes used!

And that's another thing I wish was different, the last part was sort of jumping from character to character, for short conclusions but I would love to see more about the brand new world. Honestly, I think I would be able to read a book dedicated to each country! Especially Russia, Iceland and Israel would be interesting. Also, I wish we really knew what happened in North Korea.

I also wonder about Patient Zero, because when the doctor in China informed his friend, they knew what was going on, the military seemed ready for what was happening there. That does not seem like the first case

Overall, the book is 3,5/5🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️ for me; I think I will get the audiobook to see if I'll like that format better.