Take a photo of a barcode or cover
johncrawford53's review against another edition
4.0
Marc Spitz represents the average in a world gone mad. The madness spreads along with the plague, which creates two forms of living dead: skels, traditional zombies, and stragglers, the dead who return to a moment in their life and remain. Marc Spitz has survived, not through any special talent, but rather by, in his own estimation, his thorough mediocrity. As America has fought its way back against the undead hordes, Marc Spitz has been recruited to join a small band of sweepers clearing out New York of whatever undead happen to remain. But is this new imposition of order on the chaos just another false belief.
I find this book fascinating and need someone with which to talk through my reaction to it. Ya'll hurry up and read it so I can figure out what I think about it.
I find this book fascinating and need someone with which to talk through my reaction to it. Ya'll hurry up and read it so I can figure out what I think about it.
tashreadsbc's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
This doesn't over explain, it just drops you into the world, very interesting the way it was done, the terms used and the tone of the setting.
Everything felt purposeful and intentional.
Though the characters were very pale in comparison. As the story got longer I grew less attached, the author still intent on focusing on the world and the characters only reacting every once and a while. You get a little bit of backstory every once and a while, but zero emotion.
Or something of note would come up, a chance for emotion and depth, and quickly it shifts to something else.
Not a book for me, as characters are why I read. I don't think it's a bad book, just not my type. It was well written for those who love a good world, very descriptive and visually engaging.
3/5
erinalise85's review against another edition
3.0
As he works with his crew to remove the stragglers from the buildings of Manhattan, his mind flits from past to present. He recalls what happened during what they call the “Last Night” a pandemic swept through the world and turned everyone into man eating monsters. He thinks about his family, how the hardships of this new world has changed him, and what he’s had to do to get by. Mark Spitz has always had a knack for survival, even before the end of the world, but over the course of the next three days his lucky streak may be behind him.
An account of the world after a plague has ravaged humanity and how the effects can leave the survivors wanting. It’s an odd take, full of sarcasm and almost an aloof air. Mark Spitz is a hard character to connect with. The reader almost doesn’t even care if he survives. Though the writing is what you’d grown to expect from such a remarkable author, the story itself doesn’t click. Whether it’s because the zombie apocalypse seems to have been overdone or how Mark Spitz is such an unlikable character, I honestly don’t know. All I know is it wasn’t for me.
An account of the world after a plague has ravaged humanity and how the effects can leave the survivors wanting. It’s an odd take, full of sarcasm and almost an aloof air. Mark Spitz is a hard character to connect with. The reader almost doesn’t even care if he survives. Though the writing is what you’d grown to expect from such a remarkable author, the story itself doesn’t click. Whether it’s because the zombie apocalypse seems to have been overdone or how Mark Spitz is such an unlikable character, I honestly don’t know. All I know is it wasn’t for me.
k1dub's review against another edition
2.0
I wanted to like this book, especially since I read it in the interim between the mid-season finale of Walking Dead and after reading the Zombie Survival Guide. This is no Walking Dead.
It's a melancholy, overly loquacious and sesquipedalian. This has been called the thinking man's zombie story but I find it too flawed to be that book. It raises more questions than it answers and buries most of the action and information until the last 3% of the book. At that point, you don't care as much.
There are a few nuggets in this book such as the foreshadowing, which I found haunting (keep an eye out for the psychic reader) but otherwise, this book was forgettable.
It's a melancholy, overly loquacious and sesquipedalian. This has been called the thinking man's zombie story but I find it too flawed to be that book. It raises more questions than it answers and buries most of the action and information until the last 3% of the book. At that point, you don't care as much.
There are a few nuggets in this book such as the foreshadowing, which I found haunting (keep an eye out for the psychic reader) but otherwise, this book was forgettable.
nelliecdownie's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
gabbyenoaktown's review against another edition
4.0
Heady stuff. Maybe it was me, but I was lulled into a vision of the narrator that wasn't true and liked that aspect. Social commentary on what we are and may leave behind, or cannot.
sarah0003's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
rhinelanderwaldo's review against another edition
3.0
Whitehead intentionally or not has turned his writing style into a Zombie. There's a few writing tools that Whitehead employs in his clever descriptive narrative, and then he repeats and repeats these methods until you realize the author had been infected while writing this novel. It's a literary cirque du soliel, with a single act repeated over and over, and the audience is bored and ready to bolt for the exit long before the show is done.
jabnj's review against another edition
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5