World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War has been sitting on my shelves for close to a decade. It’s survived many book unhauls in that time period, mainly because of how much I love this fiery orange cover.
Also, it features a zombie plague sweeping the world, so why wouldn’t I read that? Who doesn’t want to be petrified by the possibility of that?
Over the years, I have heard incredible things about the audio production for this book, so in spite of having a hard copy, I did decide to go with the audio format.
I’m delighted with that choice. It’s full cast and includes music and sound effects. As an Oral History, it also makes sense that having it told in a variety of accents and tones from the various voice artists would add a certain level of authenticity to it you may not feel otherwise.
The narrative style is a bit unconventional, which may not work for some Readers, but I ended up enjoying that aspect. It truly is a world story; a story of humanity.
The overall story is told through a series of vignettes from characters living all across the globe. The different perspectives run in timeline order so that we are led through the start of, middle and end of this zombie infestation.
I did watch the World War Z movie years ago, but would like to go back and watch it again to see how much it was actually inspired by this book.
I would recommend this to anyone who would enjoy more of a Literary Zombie story, as opposed to a more Horror-based story; although heavy Horror Readers could enjoy this as well, particularly the audiobook.
It’s terrifying to imagine something like this becoming reality, but I feel like Brooks did a great job examining what the overall world reaction would be. Well done!