Genre: Horror, Zombies, end of the world

Notes: 7/50 books

**WARNING** If you are really into the show and don’t want to know what happens or get any details whatsoever, don’t read this review!  I’m going to try my best to keep my details scintillating and brief, but I can’t promise I won’t accidentally give anything away.

Review: I can just hear the chorus now.  “This is based on a book?!”  To which I say, “Everything good is based on a book.”  To get technical, The Walking Dead is a graphic novel with absurdly graphic graphics – guts, blood, rape, the whole 9.

Where to begin?  This compendium encompasses Volumes 1-8 and has like 1,000 glorious pages.  And weighs like 20 lbs. There are (currently) 15 Volumes with more being written.

The book is different from the show.  That’s the first thing I can say.  The book is different from the show.  For one, Shane dies in Vol. 1 in the book and made it an absurdly long time in the show playing the stock villain. (What was that about?) Two, Dale doesn’t die in the book.  Among other things that I won’t give away here, the book is just different enough from the show that I can enjoy them both separately, which is great.

One of the best things about this series is the focus on human interaction vs. zombies.  The zombies are just background noise.  Granted, that noise can kill you and eat you alive, but the true horrors happen at the hands of other humans.  People go crazy and revert back to basic primal instincts of survival.  Less cooperation, more suspicion.   Even on Hershel’s farm (where we stayed wayyyy too long in the show) two groups of sort of decent humans almost kill each other.  If they can’t get along, who can?  Although, truly, if I were Hershel, I would have kicked them off of my farm.  They were a plague!  Everything was fine until they came along.   Once Rick came running up with Carl, it was the beginning of the end for the farm.  And the governor!  I won’t say anything more about him, but he’s an interesting character, to say the least.

We got a glimpse of her at the end of the show, but Michonne (that’s her name) is a sword wielding, kick ass woman who roams around with her zombie pets. She is the definition of a BAMF. What’s so great about Michonne, you ask?  Other than her being a total BAMF, she is a much-needed contrast to (most) of the women in the series.  I mean, she and Andrea are the only women who can take care of themselves.  And Maggie to an extent.  But Lori?!  Learn some survival skills, woman! In the show, she’s borderline useless.  In the book she’s a total waste of space.  She leaves it to the men to protect the camp and the women do the laundry and cooking.  I mean, really? If I were in this situation, you can believe I would carry a gun and be a damn good shot with it.  And I would not be stuck only doing laundry and taking care of kids.  I will take care of myself, thank you.  I pledge in the zombie apocalypse I will be useful.  And not be a burden, I will shoot a gun, and I will hunt.  You will want me in your group.  Trust me.  I know gender roles are useful sometimes, but everyone needs to be able to take care of themselves if need be.

“I can’t profess to understand God’s plan, but when Christ promised a resurrection of the dead, I just thought he had something a little different in mind” – Hershel

Bottom Line: As dumb as a “realistic” zombie apocalypse may sound, The Walking Dead does it.  I think the key is to deliberately not to explain the why.  Just accept that the zombie virus happened.  And try to survive.