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ArcherOfTheAsylum

Archer's Asylum

I'm a big bloke (7ft tall) and I am forever reading. This will mostly be my thoughts as I am reading and possibly a review or two. You may know me as Archer.

 

I am basically a lurker. My life revolves around my wife, my cats, Books, and entertainment.

 

I'm working on building and setting up a forge and I'm generally one of those people who can be found causing or in the middle of mischief somewhere...

SPOILER ALERT!

Alice in Zombieland

Alice in Zombieland (White Rabbit Chronicles) - Gena Showalter

 

Oh joy of joy’s… It’s finally over.

 

I survived *weeps*.

 

My brain is intact!

 

Yes!

 

Yes a thousand fucking times!

 

This is without a shadow of doubt the worst example of zombies that I have ever, ever, EVER had the misfortune to read. I mean seriously, are we seriously taking more classic monsters and changing them? Haven’t we been over this with Twishite? Look, I am a fan of zombies. They’re the only monster in current pop culture that actually come anywhere near to creeping me the fuck out. So why have they been changed like this? Why is this title totally misleading to what the book is actually about? Why is this a story about a teenaged girl, falling for a guy who she is fucking terrified by and ordered around by? Why can’t this be what I and a myriad of other readers had expected from the title of the book.

 

The book is called Alice in Zombieland. It is not called Alice is a great big Mary Sue. It’s not called Alice and Cole’s epic date. It’s called Alice in Zombieland… So why in the hell is it set in an American Highschool? Why in the hell is it about a 16 year old girl coming to terms with loss by falling for a bad boy? Why the hell aren’t there any actual zombies in it? I know that I am not the target demo for this book, (I’m not female and I actually know what a zombie is) but c’mon. There is a reason that, in the 44 years since Night of the Living Dead, Zombies have only really changed in that they have the ability to run now. And that reason is… They’re effective enough as it is. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken!

 

Gena Showalter, with this book, obviously wrote a story… then had an awesome idea and tried to force it into the plot like an idiot trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. All I have to say is… what a waste of a concept. The only references I got to Alice in Wonderland from this was Alice and the Rabbit… that’s it. Well No that’s a lie, I suppose one character could be the Cheshire Cat but that’s a fucking tenuous stretch. I had no Mad Hatter, no March Hare, I suppose on reflection their could be a Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum but that’s a bigger stretch than the Cat.

 

Where were the adventures in another land? Where was the threat? Where was the fucking challenge? I’m sorry I really am. But I moved schools a lot as a kid, and if I was ever accepted as easily as Ali I would’ve thought the apocalypse was happening. But no. Lo and behold she is accepted into the popular clique straight away, she starts trends straight away. Fuck that. If the book had been good I could’ve forgiven these things, honestly I could’ve. But the writing was so generically out of date it was painful. Terms like smex and manimal were tossed around with such aplomb that I was convinced for a moment we were back in 2002.

 

The plot was methodical, predictable and about as thrilling as being forced to watch cricket. The romance was all prevailing, being pretty much the only thing Ali could keep on her mind for more than a page at a time, and was just… boring. There was no thrill. There was no blossoming relationship. There was just a thick slathering of Insta-Love over absolutely everything and it utterly destroyed any actual emotion between the characters.

 

But do you want to know the really bad thing? The really fucking aaful thing that burns me deeper than a chemical burn? The thing that makes my blood boil and my vision red with an incandescent rage? This book will sell. Scratch that it won’t just sell, it will fly out of stores. Because it’s the same crappy romances that have been selling for the past few years. It’s the same bullshit archetype that gets teenaged girls looking for controlling, barely stable assholes like Pedward Cullen and Patch the Rapist in training.

 

And I for one, do not think that this is a relationship structure that should be flooding the market place anymore. Why can’t the love interest ever be a nice guy, not someone who issues fucking commands? Why can’t we see a relationship blossom rather than… She saw him and “ZOMG HE’S FAWKING HAWT ERH MEH GERD! ORGASM!!!!” Seriously… it’s not good writing. It’s lazy.

 

I for one will not be recommending this to anyone with a brain in his or her heads… So fan’s of abusive relationship archetypes… Go nuts, waste your money.

 

I need to read some good zombie fiction… And I need a drink to get rid of this bad taste in my mouth.

 

Happy Reading

 

Archer.