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

This review is for the Audible audiobook version of WWZ.

First off: this book is not for everyone. It's gory, brutal, gross and horrific. Also, stylistically, it's a collection of anecdotes almost like journal entries by individuals that eventually paints a picture of what was going on around the world during the zombie war. Not everyone will be into that format. I happen to like that sort of thing.

Secondly: I am not into zombies. I don't think about what it would be like if a zombie apocalypse would happen, I haven't prepared a kit of any sort, and I don't have proper zombie-fighting weapons. Hell, I don't even have a hurricane supply and I live on the Gulf Coast. I chose to listen to this book after seeing the reviews on GR and reading an excerpt and looking at how the audiobook was laid out. I picked it on the merits of the story, not because it is a zombie story.

Third: This book was meant to be listened to. Each anecdote is narrated (performed, really) by a different actor. Most of these actors were recognizable right off the bat- Alan Alda, Rob Reiner, Carl Reiner, etc. Their talents mask any problems with voice the story may have, since the stories are meant to be told by people from very diverse cultures.

Fourth: This is not actually about zombies, mainly. Oh sure, there ARE zombies, and the plot is about what happened in the very near future when a regional problem got out of hand and became a worldwide calamity. But this is really a story about global politics, the cold war, Bushism, HIV, Katrina, capitalism, immigration, the Middle East, religious extremism, suburbia and many other things that I'm sure I didn't catch because I'm not informed enough. It's also military porn. I didn't agree with everything the author had to say, but I was impressed with the amount of research he must have done and with his imagination. Big scope on this story.

So, of course I loved it. YMMV.