Book Review: World War Z by Max Brooks

Title: World War Z
Author: Max Brooks
Published: 2006
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Pages: 342
From: Walmart
Rating: 8/10

When I first picked up Max Brooks’ novel World War Z from Walmart, I immediately thought of sitting in a dark movie theater, watching Brad Pitt run from a flood of zombies with his family. I was expecting a book similar to the movie, not one where the two are very different.

I put off reading Brooks’ book for other books I thought would be more exciting, or I just craved reading first. Eventually, I decided to get on it, and I’m glad I did. The first zombie apocalypse novel in my repertoire, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Brooks, who is the son of famous film director and producer Mel Brooks, wove a story with only the tales people told about a zombie apocalypse. Each tale was from a different person in a different part of the world: China, South Africa, Australia, United States, Argentina. The stories also come from different types of people, including soldiers, fathers and entrepreneurs.

The novel was very well written, the different stories woven together in a perfect way, a way that showed what happened during the zombie war without giving more information away than necessary.

However, that same style of writing also bothered me a little bit. I wanted some real meat sometimes, something that showed the action and gore and death and rescues during the apocalyptic situations, not some basic information about how a group of people stayed inside because they had lots of money and filmed it all for everyone else to see.

There were some really interesting stories, which kept the novel moving, though. I really enjoyed the soldier stories because they felt like the most real of any of them.

Brooks, overall, did a nice job creating a zombie apocalypse that, for anyone knows, could possibly happen. The history he created, the different lives for the many characters, made for a very interesting and entertaining read.

I hope Brooks continues with his writing and creates more bizarre, entertaining reads for the nation, like his father has done with the film industry.

Max Brooks’ novel World War Z is available for purchase in-store and online at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.