The Secret Life of Zombies

After watching the trailer for World War Z, I was intrigued as to what the movie was about. The trailer revealed enough about the movie to interest me, but did not give too much away about the plot. When I found out that the movie was based on a novel, I jumped on the chance to find out more about the movie. I'm only about twenty pages into reading the novel, but it proved to be a very interesting book. The book is written like a combination between a history textbook, an interview, and a narrative. The angle that Max Brooks takes in writing the novel is very unique. He seemed to examine how drug cartels and human smugglers would handle the zombie apocalypse and how it would affect their crime. He also examined the different ways in how the rich and poor of third world countries, especially those in Asia, would handle their infections. The poor of these countries believed their relatives’ inflictions to be supernatural, but still protected their family members. The rich spent an absurd amount of money fleeing to other countries to find a cure, and when the situation called for it, would abandon their own family members. I feel that Brooks did such a good job of exploring an aspect of life that is not commonly looked at in American zombie culture. No longer are we sympathizing with the middle to upper class American victims, but we find sympathy for the poor Chinese peasant. Or we come to realize that crime could still remain and flourish in a world overrun by zombies. I can't wait to read more of his interesting angles on such an over done genre.