Review: Zombie Blondes by Brian James

From the moment Hannah Sanders arrived in town, she felt there was something wrong.

A lot of houses were for sale, and the town seemed infected by an unearthly quiet. And then, on Hannah’s first day of classes, she ran into a group of cheerleaders—the most popular girls in school.

The odd thing was that they were nearly identical in appearance: blonde, beautiful, and deathly pale.

But Hannah wants desperately to fit in—regardless of what her friend Lukas is telling her: if she doesn’t watch her back, she’s going to be blonde and popular and dead—just like all the other zombies in this town. . . .

Reading Level: 12+
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Format: Hardcover

Series: n/a

Pages:  232
Rating: 3 stars

This book had a refreshing view on zombies. All the zombie books I've ever read (or zombie movies I've seen) have always portrayed zombies to be mindless freaks. They can't think for themselves and they only want one thing -- to eat brains. 

The zombies in this book, however, are beautiful, athletic and popular. Everyone in the small town of Maplecrest adores the popular girls, except for the only person to even acknowledge Hannah on her first day of school, Lukas. From the moment we first meet Lukas, he tells Hannah that the popular girls are zombies and if she's not careful, they're going to make her one of them.

The story did hold my interest, but moved at kind of a slow pace for me. I got a bit irritated that all Hannah and Lukas ever seemed to do was argue over the existence of zombies. Honestly, I felt she almost deserved to be turned into a zombie herself for failing to see there was something unnatural about the popular girls.

I do have to say that while I understand the author's need to make all the cheerleaders resemble one another, the fact that all their names had to start with the letter M became confusing for me. I had a hard time remembering which M cheerleader was who until I read a few paragraphs into their conversation.

Overall, I did enjoy the story, though I wish the book had ended differently. The last few chapters definitely took me by surprise and left me wondering what has happened to Hannah since the book ended.