Review : Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter

Summary (Goodreads)

Title : Alice in Zombieland (The White Rabbit Chronicles)
Author : Gena Showalter
Publisher : Harlequin Teen
Publication Date : September 25th 2012
Goodreads - The Book Depository

She won’t rest until she’s sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever.

Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that’s all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.

Her father was right. The monsters are real….

To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies….


Personal Thoughts

Alice in Zombieland was one of those books all YA book lovers were anticipating, including me. With it's enticing cover and synopsis, it's a book that you can't help but want to read. Unfortunately, Alice in Zombieland failed to impress and I wound up being extremely disappointed. In fact, I would go as far as to say it was one of my most disappointing reads of 2012.

The book tells the story of Alice Bell, a 16 year old girl who witnesses zombies eating her parents and her younger sister after an accident. Alice realizes that her father, who has been claiming that zombies existed since a very long time, but whom nobody believed. Soon after, she moves in with her grandparents and starts attending a new school. There, she meets the leader of a bad boy group,Cole Holland, and together they must try to get rid of the zombies.

The characters ... *Sighs*
To be honest, I don't think I have one good thing to say about the characters in Alice in Zombieland because they all had characteristics that bugged me to no ends. Let's start with Alice. She started off as an okay character for me : I didn't hate her, but I didn't love her either. Her parents and sister were killed in a gruesome accident and she witnesses her loved ones die right in front of her. Sympathizing with her was easy considering all she had gone through. I admired her strength and resilience in the face of such a horrible incident. She didn't act all depressed, but instead accepted the loss of parents, vowing to take down what killed them. However, once she meets the love interest of the book, Cole, her character pretty much goes downhill. Cole was arrogant, conceited and very bossy a.k.a he was very unattractive in my eyes. A guy who pretty much belongs to a gang and comes to school with bruises everyday isn't someone I would want to associate with, but of course, that's all not important because obviously Cole is uber gorgeous! Why do most YA boys have to be bad boys? Honestly! I don't know about you guys, but I adore the good guys. Anyways, back to the review. So, right after Alice meets Cole she loses all her neurons and becomes this extremely annoying girl who keeps mentioning how gorgeous Cole is on every single page. The other characters weren't that great either. I remember thinking the younger sister being pretty much a spoiled brat who throws a temper tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants. Then, there was the fakest, most frustrating character in the book, Kat, Alice's new friend. I couldn't stand her "I'm better than everyone" attitude. There were so many times that I simply wanted to slap the heck out of her! Am I the only one who really hated this chick?

As far as the plot goes, it wasn't much better either. I had very high hopes for this book. When you have a title like "Zombieland", you expect lots of zombies, lots of action and pretty much lots of fun! Unfortunately, Alice in Zombieland fails to deliver what it promises in its title. Instead of killer zombies, you get lots and lots of mindless romance that overwhelms the plot. To be honest, Alice in Zombieland had lots of potential. It could have been a great book with its ideas, but I felt like basically nothing major happened in the book apart from the death of Alice's parents. Every plot twist was just foreseeable. This book made me roll my eyes so many times. I honestly don't know how I got through the entire thing without wanting to throw my e-reader! The romance wasn't my cup of tea either. It was basically a typical bad boy meets good girl romance : Overused and unrealistic.

Alice in Zombieland didn't deliver what I expected it to deliver. The poorly written characters, the nonexistent plot line and the cliched romance just didn't do it for me. However, many of my good friends seem to have really enjoyed the book, so although it might not be to my liking, you might enjoy it!

Rating

Cover : 4/5
Plot : 2/5
Characters : 1/5
Writing : 2/5