Zombie-tastic Zombie

My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

* This great zombie cover was created by the very talented Dan Dos Santos.  I love this cover and it really makes the book stand out and goes along well with the story.

* Read via the public library.  This is one library book that I'll definitely be buying.

This book gets a zombietastic 5 out of 5 gnomes for having a great story where the zombie is a main character and not a villain.  This is a great take on the whole finding and bettering yourself kind of story.  It also was a great read with a character who is definitely flawed but really fun to read about.   

Angel Crawford is well, to put it nicely, a loser.  Things actually start to improve for her after she dies.  The story actually opens up with her waking up in the hospital after an overdose.  Things get weirder from there though because her memories don't match up with what she's told has happened.

She's not sure what to believe at first and thinks that she may be going crazy.  Her lifestyle before waking up in the hospital mostly consisted of doing drugs, drinking, and hanging out with her boyfriend.  The boyfriend isn't exactly the greatest influence either, he's kind of a slacker/enabler.  Angel is someone that you might not think has a chance seeing as she's the daughter of a crazy mother and an alcoholic father.  She's been making some bad choices since high school at least but her new state that she finds herself in means that alcohol and drugs don't have the same effect that they used to.

A mysterious note tells her to get a job at the morgue and do the job for at least a month or she'll go to jail.  To her own amazement she actually likes her new job.  The job at the morgue is gross yet intriguing because she gets to see death up close and personal.  This job also gives her access to a lot of brains, which is pretty darn important to her survival.

If you read the title of the book then you already know what Angel has been turned in to.  Knowing that just adds to the reading experience as you see her discovering what she now is and everything that entails.  She's a quick learner and her new strong stomach means that nothing seems to bother her during autopsies or while picking up a body.

Even the minor characters are portrayed well and will leave you wanting to know even more about their stories.  Everybody from her father to the cops she meets feels like they are important.  One of the most entertaining parts is getting to see how Angel changes through the various people she connects with at work and a potential love interest.

Now you may be thinking about the weirdness of zombie love and picturing something disgusting.  In this world though the act isn't really necrophilia like as long as the zombie has recently eaten brains.  If they haven't eaten recently though then zombie sex probably would be rather messy/horrifying.

This book has something for everyone.  The story is a mash of zombies, overcoming adversity, mysterious circumstances, and a serial killer.  The ending line will make you laugh out loud and does set up some interesting developments for the next book.  All of those things blended together make for one fresh zombie read.  It's even hard to figure out who the bad guy is, there are lots of clues along the way to what's going on but I know I sure didn't figure everything out.  Angel is one heck of a character and I can't wait to see what happens next.

My Favorite Quotes/Lines
"So maybe there were different degrees of monster.  I was a monster with a mushy heart."

"I smiled my best bad-bitch smile.  Oh, yeah.  I was about to burn me some brains."

"And nothing fell off that wasn't supposed to."