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David and Sarah not only survived the initial zombie outbreak but created a thriving business in exterminating them. Months later, they’re contacted by a scientist named Kevin Barnes who wants to hire them not to kill zombies, but to bring them to him alive. He needs them to test what may be a cure for the virus that caused the outbreak.
But while Sarah still has hope for a zombie-less future, David has grown more cynical. He doesn’t trust Dr. Barnes, and he doesn’t want to do anything with zombies but kill them. Making progress towards a cure may be more urgent than they realize, because reports are cropping up of superzombies. They’re faster and more deadly, and if they grow too numerous, the living won’t stand a chance against the dead.
The one thing that I’ve been enjoying about the most recent crop of zombie novels is that the authors have been making a concerted effort to worldbuild. They don’t just focus on the horror aspect of friends and neighbors becoming the living dead, they put thought into what the wider world would be like after such a disaster. Petersen has posited a society based on barter and expediency. They get jobs by checking message boards at refugee camps. They trade services for supplies and medicine. I think this is a realistic view of what America would be like in this situation.
In this novel, David and Sarah subsume their bickering into the deeper question of hope: should one hold out hope that things will get better, or should one simply accept the way things are and adapt? And yet, this is the very question that couples who are having marital difficulties must grapple with. Do they work towards a goal that may blow up in their faces, or do they bow to circumstance and take the path of divorce or unhappiness? In this sense, the zombies are a physical manifestation of the “elephant in the living room” that no one wants to acknowledge but that will almost always intrude upon your notice. Oftentimes, that intrusion is chaotic, and that word certainly describes what it would be like to live in a zombie-infested world.
In the broader plot, the occurrence of super-zombies, or “bionics” as Sarah dubs them, is a pivotal event. Not only does it trigger a higher degree of fear, but it really pushes the main characters into a situation that tests them in many ways. Again, this is an element of many other tales—zombies that are faster and more alert—but it’s used well.
The one thing that I had a problem with was the explanation of why the antagonist created bionics to begin with. When Sarah and David confront him and ask why, the person in question launches into a long-winded explanation of how he did it, sprinkled with diatribes against other people and self-congratulation. I don’t feel that readers really get a reason for his actions beyond “Hey, it was cool and I wanted to do it.” There are suggestions, mostly from David and Sarah, that the antagonist is breeding a zombie army, but that’s never confirmed and nor is there any compelling motive for this being the case. As a result, the resolution of that storyline feels like it was left hanging a little bit.
However, this novel does a great job at setting up for the next story in the series. There are two major plotlines that are entwined and will need to be followed in Eat, Slay, Love. While I may not have been satisfied with everything about the ending of Flip This Zombie, I’m definitely looking forward to novel number three.
This series is comprised of novels that are quick reads and that offer humor and chills in equal proportion. Flip This Zombie is a light and fast-paced treat for zombie aficionados.
This book was provided by the publisher as an e-book.
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