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Author: Colson Whitehead
Genre: Horror
Length: 259 pages
Published: 2011
Publisher: Doubleday
Brief Synopsis: (Taken from Goodreads) In this wry take on the post-apocalyptic horror novel, a pandemic has devastated the planet. The plague has sorted humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead.
Now the plague is receding, and Americans are busy rebuilding civilization under orders from the provisional government based in Buffalo. Their top mission: the resettlement of Manhattan. Armed forces have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street—aka Zone One—but pockets of plague-ridden squatters remain. While the army has eliminated the most dangerous of the infected, teams of civilian volunteers are tasked with clearing out a more innocuous variety—the “malfunctioning” stragglers, who exist in a catatonic state, transfixed by their former lives.
Mark Spitz is a member of one of the civilian teams working in lower Manhattan. Alternating between flashbacks of Spitz’s desperate fight for survival during the worst of the outbreak and his present narrative, the novel unfolds over three surreal days, as it depicts the mundane mission of straggler removal, the rigors of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder, and the impossible job of coming to grips with the fallen world.
And then things start to go wrong.
Both spine chilling and playfully cerebral, Zone One brilliantly subverts the genre’s conventions and deconstructs the zombie myth for the twenty-first century.
Now the plague is receding, and Americans are busy rebuilding civilization under orders from the provisional government based in Buffalo. Their top mission: the resettlement of Manhattan. Armed forces have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street—aka Zone One—but pockets of plague-ridden squatters remain. While the army has eliminated the most dangerous of the infected, teams of civilian volunteers are tasked with clearing out a more innocuous variety—the “malfunctioning” stragglers, who exist in a catatonic state, transfixed by their former lives.
Mark Spitz is a member of one of the civilian teams working in lower Manhattan. Alternating between flashbacks of Spitz’s desperate fight for survival during the worst of the outbreak and his present narrative, the novel unfolds over three surreal days, as it depicts the mundane mission of straggler removal, the rigors of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder, and the impossible job of coming to grips with the fallen world.
And then things start to go wrong.
Both spine chilling and playfully cerebral, Zone One brilliantly subverts the genre’s conventions and deconstructs the zombie myth for the twenty-first century.
My Review:
I give this book a 4 out of 5.
I very nearly gave this a 3. But when the action picked up and I was caught up in it, I decided I needed to bump it to a 4.
Zone One takes place over three days, and so the book is set up in three parts: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday made me want to fall asleep. When I pick up a book or watch a movie about zombies (which are by far some of my favorite books/movies), I expect action. Lots and lots of action. The first part was dull. There was only one zombie encounter (referred to in the novel as "skels") and it wasn't even terribly exciting.
The other thing that bothered me the most about the book as a whole was that the author put a lot of flashbacks into the story. A LOT of flashbacks. And they weren't always easily determined to be such until a couple paragraphs into that section. Which made it confusing. These insertions got easier to identify later on in the book and I got used to them. But in the first 100 or so pages (which is how long "Friday" is), I found them distracting.
I also did not care about the main character, Mark Spitz, until much later in the novel. There was just nothing that made me even remotely interested in him.
"Saturday", the second part, was much more action packed, and the final part was even MORE packed with action. Those second two parts made my decision change from a 3 star to a 4 star rating. They redeemed the book in my eyes. The first part feels like it was designed to lull the reader into a sense of safety and then BAM! here come the skels.
All in all the concept of the novel is great, though. The plague has taken out most of humanity. The humans left are now under orders to go through and clear out a section of Manhattan labeled "Zone One". The marines have already come through and cleared most of the hordes, and now the civilian sweepers are coming through to take out the stragglers (skels who don't move) and other random skels that have been missed. Even the sweepers and the military have been lulled into a false sense of security much like the reader. So all in all, I think it ended up being a pretty brilliant way to write a post-apocalyptic zombie novel. Definitely worth the read as a zombie or post-apocalyptic aficionado if you can manage to make it through the first frustratingly slow 100 pages.
You can purchase Zone One through Amazon in either hard copy or Kindle format.
Have you read Zone One? If so, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!
Please note: I was not compensated in any way for this review. It is strictly my opinion.
Please note: I was not compensated in any way for this review. It is strictly my opinion.
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