Sunday, July 7, 2013

Haha! I Win; A Zombie-Fanatic Is Born

   I've been attempting to convince my daughter that the love of all things zombie is only natural. For a long time this was a downhill battle. She just wasn't interested. She wasn't interested in Resident Evil, she wasn't interested in any of the old zombie movie classics, she didn't care about the Walking Dead (and still doesn't, what the hell?)
   But I wore her down, and finally, I was able to convince her to read this book called The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan. Now, this book was enough to convince her that she might actually like some of the zombie stuff that her mom was trying to force down her throat. This book didn't turn her into a full blown zombie-lover, but this book did open the door. And yeah, it's in the young adult section, but this isn't some love story that makes zombies seem sexy. Zombies were the undead, and they did eat people and infect the masses.
   Then I found this wonderful book that I really got into. I loved this book. I bet many of you can guess the name, but for those of you ignorant in all things zombie, the book was called World War Z, by Max Brooks. I couldn't put this book down, despite the fact that I don't think that this book is the easiest book to read. You don't follow a main character; this book takes the form of a multitude of interviews, never with the same person, and through these interviews, you see how the shape of the zombie war unfolded. As soon as you get into one person's story, that story ends and you move on to the next person. This book should have been annoying as hell to read, but it wasn't, and I read the damn thing in one night.
    My daughter has made the comment to me that I always chose the best books for her to read; a fact that does make me pretty happy. I like being able to provide people with suggestions of good reading material, and I am always really glad when they like a suggestion. Yay! I don't know why I like this; I just do. We all have our little quirks. And I guess my daughter decided that since I had always given her good books to read, that she wanted to read the book that I got so into that I spent a whole night reading the book. So she read the book, and she liked it! I was surprised, because I actually do think that this book has the potential to be hard to follow, and though my daughter reads on a high level, according to school testing, I didn't know how she would like or be able to follow this book. But she read the book, she was able to follow the story line, and best of all, she really liked it.
   She liked the book so much, that when they came out with the movie, she begged to be able to go see it. Now, I know that this movie was rated PG-13, but I carefully read the previews, and I had decided that if the movie just got too graphic for her, that  I would be prepared to usher her out of the theater. She really wanted to see the movie, and after letting her read the book, it seemed asinine to refuse to let her watch the movie. But not only did I worry about the violence, I also worried about the quality of the story. Obviously, this movie was going to follow Brad Pitt's character throughout the whole of the movie, and I worried that they were going to take this really good zombie story and turn it into a Brad Pitt flick. But we went to see the movie on the 4th of July, and I thought the movie was really good, and I also thought that the story could have fit right into the book. The book is basically a collection of survival stories from different people, and not the whole of the stories, just the critical moments. This movie followed that structure, in my own opinion. This was the key part of this man's survival of the zombie war, and when his part was over, the story ended. I've heard complaints over the abrupt ending, but the book is full of abrupt endings. I liked the movie, and so did my daughter!
   Woo-hoo! The first zombie movie that my daughter has liked. Also, the first zombie movie that my daughter has ever really watched, due to lack of interest. But she liked this one, and if they make another, she has already informed me that she wants to go see that one too. This, I tell myself, is the birth of a zombie fanatic.

   (Side note: I also got my mom to go see the movie. Which was a mind-blowing achievement for two reasons: she doesn't like anything scary or gory, and she hates Brad Pitt almost as much as she hates Tom Cruise. I now consider myself a master-manipulator. Mwahahahahahahaha!)

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