Daniel Waters (1) (1969–)

Generation Dead isn't your typical zombie book. You won't find rotting corpses nor do the zombies hunt their living counterparts. They may as well be just like you and me, only dead and slower in their speech and movements.
Phoebe, our main character is a goth, which in this book is kinda odd; seeing as there are dead kids in her school. For some unknown reason the youth of America has been coming back after they die. In Generation Dead, there is no rhyme or reason as to why this is going on, nor does anyone understand why certain teens come back and others don't. And it is only the teens that are coming back, no zombie adults here! The town of Oakvale seems to be one of the best places for the "living impaired" to be, seeing as they are allowed to attend school at Oakvale High.
Tommy Williams is the "living impaired" kid that Phoebe becomes intrigued by. At first she doesn't want to be anything more than his friend, and even then her "live" friends are kinda iffy about that. Margi is Phoebe's best girlfriend and while she is goth like Phoebe, she wants almost nothing to do with the dead kids. Adam is a football player and while him and Phoebe are friends and neighbors, they don't really hang out or talk much at school in the beginning. Adam is realizing that what he feels for Phoebe may just be something more than friendship, and he doesn't really like the fact that she is starting to like Tommy, although he is more accepting of it and the dead kids than Margi is.
There is a lot of drama, normal teen-angst and romance in the book, and while most of the obvious questions don't get answered in this installment, I feel confident that we will begin to get some answers int he next two books. The writing is amazing and I could really see the "living impaired' in my head. I felt as though I was at most of the places that the kids all ended up and experiencing what they were. It isn't often that i can get sucked into a book so much that I dream about it, but Generation Dead had me dreaming of Adam and Tommy on the football field for their one game, and dreams of Homecoming with Phoebe in her "moonlight" inspired dress.
I am impatiently searching and waiting for the remaining two books in the series and can't wait to get my hands on them, especially after the sad but happy ending of Generation Dead.… (more)

You can read this review and others on my blog acascadeofbooks.blogspot.com

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I love zombies. Although I wouldn't particularly like to meet one, I really enjoy reading about them!! This book has always featured fairly high on most people's list of zombie novels (especially YA)and I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately it really let me down :(

Firstly the characters; Phoebe was a pretty cliché character, a Goth who wrote deep and meaningful poetry and wore a lot of black. She seemed to be a Goth for no other reason than to be something "different" in YA. She really had very little interesting or original to say, I was pretty disappointed by her as a main character.

Her love interest is a zombie called Tommy, who was a pretty limp character, he wasn't particularly fleshed out (excuse the pun!).

The other minor characters in the novel include Adam, who fills the clichéd role of the best friend who is in love with our main character, and Margi the other best friend, who Phoebe tries to convince that zombies aren't all bad.

I also had a problem with the zombies themselves in this novel. They were the weakest and most pathetic zombies I've ever read about. They did nothing even remotely zombie, I understand that they're trying to be integrated back into society, but if they're so like humans, why is everyone creating such a fuss? I also would've liked a bit more information on exactly why these teenagers were coming back as zombies, absolutely nothing was explained about this at all. I understand it's a series, but c'mon!

The author also used some weird language throughout the novel, including very lengthy descriptions of things, that frankly didn't need to be explained. For example "Phoebe's breath preceded her, puffs of vapour like spirits dancing in the light of the moon." There was no reason for all the dancing spirit stuff, we all know how our breaths appear when it's cold!

There were also some just plain weird descriptions, like this one; "Phoebe just looked at her beautiful egg salad sandwich and wished that she had any desire left to eat it." A "beautiful egg sandwich"? Seriously!

The story also had a weird point of view, which changed from a third person POV to jumping between many different characters POVs with very little warning. It all meant a rather confusing time for the reader,

Overall I really didn't enjoy this novel, if you hadn't noticed!! I had such high expectations for it and it really disappointed me.
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