Title: Alice in Zombieland
Author: Gena Showalter
Series: White Rabbit Chronicles #1
Next Book: Through the Zombie Glass
Source: Personal Purchase
Description from Goodreads:
She won’t rest until she’s sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever.
Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that’s all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.
Her father was right. The monsters are real.
To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies.
Review
I’d heard a lot of good things about Alice in Zombieland, but I was a little hesitant going into it. I’m not really a fan of zombie books (or movies. Zombies just don’t really appeal to me.), but I decided to give it a chance. My friend Jac and I were supposed to read it together, so I got reading. (She, on the other hand, got a little bit distracted!)
I still was unsure when I started Alice in Zombieland. Her father sees monsters that no one else sees and refuses to let his family leave the house after dark. Alice thinks her father is crazy, so she convinces him to leave after dark to see her younger sister’s dance recital. On the way home, they are in a car accident, and Alice is the only survivor. However, she thinks she sees something dive under her father’s skin before she blacks out. From there, Alice, now going by Ali, moves in with her grandparents and starts a new school. She is inexplicably drawn to Cole Holland, the resident bad boy. She also discovers that zombies are real, but few people can see them, and she resolves to fight them for as long as she is able.
I felt like Alice in Zombieland started off a little slowly, and I was a bit confused by some things that were happening, but once the revelations started, the pace and my enjoyment picked up greatly. I actually found Gena Showalter’s zombie world to be absolutely intriguing, and Ali’s part in it was fascinating. I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it, though the zombies were totally creepy and made my skin crawl.
Alice in Zombieland is full of fascinating characters. Ali herself is really interesting to get to know, especially as she deals with her grief over the death of her family and her part in it. Cole and his group of friends seem dangerous, and I really wanted to know more about them! Ali’s new friend, Kat, is just hilarious. She’s definitely not lacking in the confidence department, but somehow she manages to come across as endearing. I also really liked Ali’s grandparents. They were really funny at times.
The main conflict and the ending were really intense and maybe even a little confusing, but in a great way. I thought it was really great, and it definitely got me interested in continuing the story. Also, I’ve heard that Cole just gets better in the next book, so that should be interesting!
It’s really hard to explain what I liked about Alice in Zombieland, but I definitely enjoyed it. It was not at all what I expected from a book about zombies, which is good, because I expected to be grossed out and/or bored the whole time, and I wasn’t. I was completely sucked in from pretty early on. I will say that it is not as much a retelling of Alice in Wonderland as the title would imply, but it was still really good. I would definitely recommend this one!
Mommy's Reading Break 