What if the zombie virus was a sexually transmitted disease? It's an interesting premise, but this book doesn't really carry it out very well. Basically, you get the zombie virus through bodily fluids, which is pretty normal. Zombies want to get their bodily fluids on you--also fairly standard. The conclusion that I came to after reading this is that the zombie virus is already basically a sexually transmitted disease in that if you have sex with a zombie you will probably become a zombie. Don't do it, kids. It's books like this that inspire me to become a writer. Because after having read it, I'm pretty damn sure I could do better, even though the longest thing I've ever written is a 30 page research paper about a fairly esoteric topic in harpsichord music.I really wanted to like this book. I decided that I didn't after about the first five pages. Then I kept reading and tried to change my mind, because in some spots it almost becomes good, but overall, not really. There's nothing unique about the plot or about the writing, and there's way too much gratuitous sex...apparently in Beamer's Berkeley, the first thing any character does upon seeing or meeting another character is either straddle them, kiss them, or try to rape them. Or, if the two characters aren't boning, they have boned in the past and Beamer will tell you about it. Aside from the annoyingly boring sex scenes, the writing is just flat. There's nothing particularly clever or good about it, and it mostly consists of barebones, plain descriptions of what is happening. The author makes a few stabs at trying to sound literary but they stick out oddly, as the metaphors are generally forced. ("The Zeppelin was laid out on the hilltop like a sacrifice to some steampunk god.") Emotional reactions are handled clumsily--a character will go from making a plain statement to yelling. You can tell because Beamer tells us, "...he yelled," fairly immediately after "he said".All this having been said, the book is readable. I have read worse. The Celestine Prophecy, for example, is worse. Beamer isn't stupid, or even a terrible writer somewhere down inside, but it just seems like perhaps this isn't her strong point--perhaps non-fiction would be a better idea. This is just too wanky and self-referential, really beating you over the head with the fact that, hey, we're in the East Bay, and the author also makes it painfully obvious that she or someone close to her has worked at Trader Joe's. It's overly concerned with being modern and hip, bringing up name brand products nearly as much as Bret Easton Ellis but without his style. Anyway, that's enough about this book--to sum it up, the writing is rather bland, the plot is exactly what you think it might be with absolutely no surprises or twists, and the characters are flat and barely believable. OH, that's right, the ending. The ending is actually kind of interesting with the exception of main character Kate's attempts at goth poetry or something. However, the ending comes as sort of a deus ex machina for the author, who obviously could not figure out how to end a plot that wasn't really going anywhere. It's sort of tacked onto the culmination of what I suppose is the central love story of the book, jumps way in the future, and then retroactively explains a bunch of crap that the author obviously got bored trying to write about. But the setting and also...let's say, cultural shift that the ending describes could be a far more interesting beginning to a different novel altogether. Let's just hope somebody else writes it.
What do You think about The Loving Dead (2010)?
This was a quirky zombie book. I totally enjoyed it. It's definitely a different mode to the genre.
—ag30rock
This a cute, quick read for living dead lovers. It's not your every day zombie book, either.
—Lauren
Zombies! Darkly, erotic, Trader Joe zombies? Lol... Snarky, dark humor!!!3.5 stars
—yellejo
