Monday, May 14, 2012

Review of The Weepers: The Other Life

 Goodreads Summary: "3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life.

Sherry and her family have lived sealed in a bunker in the garden since things went wrong up above. Her grandfather has been in the freezer for the last three months, her parents are at each other’s throats and two minutes ago they ran out of food.

Sherry and her father leave the safety of the bunker and find a devastated and empty LA, smashed to pieces by bombs and haunted by ‘Weepers’ - rabid humans infected with a weaponized rabies virus.

While searching for food in a supermarket, Sherry’s father disappears and Sherry is saved by Joshua, a boy-hunter. He takes her to Safe-haven, a tumble-down vineyard in the hills outside LA, where a handful of other survivors are picking up the pieces of their ‘other lives’. As she falls in love for the first time, Sherry must save her father, stay alive and keep Joshua safe when his desire for vengeance threatens them all.
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The Weepers: The Other Life by Susanne Winnacker is one of those books that immediately sucks you in. I had every intention of only reading the first page or two to get a feel for it when suddenly I was thirteen percent of the way through.

The disease that the Weepers have is something that evolved out of rabies, which I thought was an interesting take on the usual zombies because that is what usually comes to mind when I see the mindless dead. I mean, when an animal has rabies they turn into a mindless killer AKA zombie. Its a great concept.

I also liked the countdowns that narrate the novel, given to the reader by Sherry our FMC. Everything to her is a series of numbers, how long it has been since she has seen this or eaten that. It helped add a realistic feel to her being trapped in the bunker for so long. I felt that these numbers added perspective, you could feel that she was on the edge.

But at times this novel felt rushed, things just kept happening one after another without really giving the reader much time to adjust to the new events. I understand why, the novel only takes place over a few days, but still I don't really felt as if I had enough time to bond with the characters I was presented with before new ones were introduced. I felt as if I had only barely begun to read when suddenly I was at the end. Though since it is part of a series I'm hoping these things will be further explored in the next novel.

Having been recently inducted into the zombie fandom I felt this novel showed a great deal of promise, I mean anything could have been waiting for Sherry and her family outside of their bunker. Unfortunately at a hundred percent completion there was just something missing for me.

Rating: 2/5 Stars

My review of this novel is based off an E-ARC that I received on Netgalley courtesy of the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

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