Devoid of wit or charm, or even a consistent narrative voice. By turning her narrator into Mr. Allusion, the author has saved herself the hard work of characterization, and by being compulsively meta, she has saved herself the hard work of originality. But the book has the word "ontology" several times, so it must be intellectual. ( )

I was expecting something fun and witty. An easy read, and fun escape into a zombie world. Instead, I got a pedantic and self-congratulatory mess of a book that had no clear direction of where it was headed. It meandered like a zombie sorely in need of a bullet to the brain.

The overall premise of the book had potential, and it would have been refreshing to look through the zombie trope from a different lens. However, our main zombie character, Jack, is such a revolting douchebag that anything interesting that happens throughout the story is tarnished from his opining over it. Jack is your stereotypical YT with a PhD, and you won't for a minute forget it because he spends most of the book telling you he's a professor and as such above the masses, those plebs.

The lack of self-awareness Jack shows would probably be hilarious, but it quickly becomes apparent that Becker genuinely thinks her character is wry and arrogant, and not just your run of the mill asshole. Because of his pedigree and PhD, he sees himself as savior and messiah to the zombie population, and goes on to essentially see himself as the Moses to his zombie brethren.

The closest we see to Jack getting any character development is when he finally gets to meet the creator of the virus, zombie daddy Stein, who proceeds to tell Jack that there will never be a human-zombie peace as Jack had hoped because zombies can never override their base desire of eating brains. Jack then eats him. Because he has will and choice, and chooses to eat brains.

The writing of the book is chock full of puns, and attempts at witty one-liners, but it quickly loses its charm. Its also funny that Jack spends most of the book deriding anything remotely popular, "popularity proved inferiority, not worth," when Becker makes of point of using several pop culture references via book classics, authors ranging from Poe to Tennessee Williams, and pop culture icons like Oprah (without naming her).

I wanted to like this book, but the narrative style and self-congratulatory feel that Jack, and by extension Becker, exudes throughout this book was too much.

1/5 zombie treatises ( )

A guilty pleasure. Clear, concise, and quick-witted take on the Zombie Apocalypse. Narrated by an English professor who retains the ability to think critically and quickly takes charge over a group of shuffling, talented (by undead standards) zombies. Undead Oprah makes an appearance. What's not to love?! ( )

Told from the perspective of a zombie who finds he has the ability to think and to write, Brains was unexpectedly funny and very well-written. ( )

So far I'm enjoying the book immensely! It's chock full of clever cultural references and clearly written by someone with a witty sense of humor. I'll have to wait and see if the story/plot follows in this way, if so... It could become a favorite.

Final thoughts after finishing: Everything above sticks but the book slowed, the clever writing and references were mostly sacrificed to an okay plot. Great book but I was disappointed that the finish wasn't as spectacular as the start. ( )