R doesn’t want to let him out because he doesn’t want to dwell on who he was before. R thinks of his past-life human soul (for lack of a better way to describe it) as a man in the basement. I never quite fully understood who we was, but I think it’s supposed to be the human consciousnesses that have been suppressed by the zombies. The collective “we.” Some sections of the book are narrated by a sort of mysterious “we.” These parts seemed even more poetic, filled with library metaphors that seemed to symbolize a depository of humanity or a collective consciousness.I have to confess that I suspected a lot of it very early on, but there were definitely many surprising details. Throughout the book we slowly learn more and more about who R was before he became a zombie. Marion’s style seems more poetic and philosophical in this book-to go along with R’s burgeoning humanity. It’s been a while since I read the first book, but I don’t remember being so captivated by the writing. The world is dangerous, and Julie has to become dangerous to survive in it. When things start to go awry, they go very awry, and Julie crosses lines she never thought she’d cross (and that R never thought she’d cross).

Nothing is working out the way she’d hoped-the zombies aren’t all coming back to life and flourishing, and the humans aren’t accepting the possibility of change. While R is struggling to gain his humanity, in some ways Julie is losing hers-and her hope. While the first book felt surprisingly light (for a zombie novel), this second book gets a bit grittier and darker. I was fascinated with the zombies’ struggle for humanity.

He’s there emotionally, but his body and mind are sluggish-not quite ready yet. They actually refer to the different states of being a zombie in that way-there are those who are still completely Dead, those who have a spark of life, those who are approaching being human again, and a few who are nearly there! R is focused on waking up and on becoming a part of the human world (being accepted by it is a whole other matter). His body and mind are slowly coming awake, but he doesn’t have full control-it’s as if he’s still partially dead. I was engrossed with R’s struggle to become fully human again. Plus, Julie and R learn that there are sinister forces at work in their world-forces that will derail the progress they’ve made if they let it. But the past won’t completely let him go, and his avoidance is making it harder for him to re-humanize.

He just wants to move forward with Julie and help the other zombies crawl back to the world of the living. In this sequel, R is learning how to be human again, and struggling against remembering his past life. This book feels very different than the first book-more adult somehow (Julie turns 20 during the book, but it’s more the tone of the book that I’m referring to than the ages of the characters). It’s taken years for us to get a sequel to Warm Bodies, but it was worth the wait.

Warm bodies book review