Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter

Release Date: Out now!

Publisher: HarlequinTeen Australia

Pages: 368pgs

The Story

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 . . .

The Review

A big thanks to HarlequinTeen Australia for sending me an ARC copy of this book!

Since she was a small child, Alice Bell was never allowed to go out at night. In the dark . . . alone . . . ever. But as much as Alice hates her life right now and the father she blames for being responsible for making her fear the 'monsters' she can never see nor believed in, but soon her life changes forever and for the worst too. When she's involved in a brutal car accident, killing not only her father but her mother and little sister as well, Alice is forced to live with her grandparents, which means forgetting her old life and moving to a new town and meeting new people. So when she meets and befriends - or rather slowly falls in love with - the local bad boy, Cole, Alice will soon believe everything of the unknown as she finally begins to see the monsters her father warned her about, releasing a terrible and violent future all round Alice and her loved ones!

ALICE IN ZOMBIELAND was everything I was looking for in a YA book! And about time too! With an unbelievable, drool-worthy cover and a storyline that sounded ultra-amazing, I thought this book was going to rock my socks off because, much like what the cover presented to me, I actually thought this book was going to be about my favourite of all-time story of Alice in Wonderland, only with a small zombie twist to it. But don't let the cover fool you like it did with me (I know . . . I know . . . I should have thought this was not going to be the same Alice). While the book may have some small elements of the original tale, Alice in Wonderland, such as small mentions of seeing the white rabbit and a friend named Kat that resembled almost like the Cheesire Cat, but this book was far from my favourite Alice and it turned out to be something I wasn't expecting at all. Like really, really different from my own expectations.

I love zombies, okay? I mean, don't get me wrong here, zombies and the action sequences in this book were pretty awesome and they had me regularly going, 'YEAH MAN! GO FOR IT! SLAY THOSE ZOMBIES!', but the storyline was a problem or rather the problem for me. It just wasn't strong enough story-wise and I was pretty confused like I was actually in Wonderland, which is sad to say because this book had so much potential. Of course. . . . it was still really good once I understood what the hell was going on, but personally there wasn't enough explanation nor specific facts to tell me why this particular Alice was seeing and fighting zombies with her new team of zombie slayers. I just didn't get it. Now I'm all for zombie killings and I say go wild for it as it's open season for all, but maybe it was just me not reading it properly (trust me I tried to) but I was left re-reading parts of the book in order to try and get a better understanding of why Alice Bell, the main character, had something to do with these zombies, you know? The storyline was good - weird but good - but it could have been dealt with a lot better. I know others enjoyed this book much more than me, but perhaps this book should have stayed away from the famous Alice and focused more on an original tale, because the cover especially made me expect more of an Alice in Wonderland feel rather than Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Well I mean, zombie slayer!

For our main character, Alice Bell, she was definitely a cool character to get to know. She was a strong girl with a lot of attitude - my favourite kind of heroine! Even when the death of her family brings her almost to the brink of ruin, she still manages to pull through it all and allow this new change to change herself as a person for the better. In saying that, Alice the Zombie Slayer was pretty awesome to read about and once she got into the violent action she was SO there and was prepared to fight at whatever cost. But I must admit, I was a bit taken back when her vulnerable side began to kick in, particularly when it came to the new boy she meets, Cole. Her love interest I suppose, Cole, unlike Alice, was someone that took me quite a while to warm up to. I totally get his bad boy appeal with those fangals out there and the way Alice is suddenly drawn to him in inexplicable ways, but Cole was . . . different. I mean, I love the devotion he has towards Alice and his friends and family, and how he always wants to protect those he cares most about, but I don't know . . . I can't put my finger on it. Whether it's because he plays with Alice's emotions and confuses her for the most of the time in the book for no good reason, but there was just something that ticked me off about him. He was too . . . what's the word . . . smooth and he always went alpha male at the worst possible times. Yeah . . . wasn't a fan of his but Alice's character tops it all in the character department! Cole, on the other hand, was just . . . plain, boring Cole. Sorry Cole, no offence!

Overall, while the storyline and its characters didn't totally win me over and in some ways may have disappointed me, but ALICE IN ZOMBIELAND is the MUST book for all those zombie lovers and even if this book is really different but I still think the originality of it was something quite refreshing. So be sure to check it out and have a go at it! You might end up loving it!

The Rating

3/5 stars