World War Z

Random House

World War Z
Max Brooks
2006

The Summary
"We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time?  We have (temporarily?) defeated the living dead but at what cost.  Told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror firsthand, World War Z is the only record of the plague years."

The Good
I ventured back into Max Brooks' zombie-infested world recently with the help of an audiobook.  Already an ardent fan of World War Z, I was intrigued by the idea of actually listening to the story and, since it featured a full cast (among them Nathan Fillion, Martin Scorsese, and, of course, Mark Hamill), I couldn't wait to get started.  While I was a little disappointed to learn I found an abridged copy after borrowing it from my library website, I wasn't disappointed by the storytelling.

It was thrilling to hear the stories brought to life, to hear the voices of these characters that I'd envisioned in previous readings of World War Z.  I loved listening to my audiobook and, if I'm being honest, I finished it in a little over two days.  I popped in my earbuds and listened to my audiobook at every opportunity, listening to the brutal civil war in Israel during my car ride to work, listening to Todd Wainio recount the Battle of Yonkers as I walked my dog, listening to events unfold in the castles of England when I cooked dinner.

I couldn't put it away, I couldn't stop.  I was hooked from the introduction, just like I'd been hooked when I first picked up World War Z--when I read those first few stories and became embroiled in the conflict, in the desperation for survival.

The audiobook is just as addictive as the novel.

The Bad
I had an abridged copy of World War Z.

Honestly, I feel like I missed out on so much.  The audiobook barely looked at what happened in India and Japan, didn't even touch upon events in Russia, didn't recount what happened in the flooded catacombs beneath Paris or the Pacific Ocean, and it certainly didn't tell the reader what happened to the astronauts stuck on the space station orbiting Earth.

Those are the stories I missed, the stories I'd dearly loved to have heard.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed listening to the audiobook and I would highly recommended it to any fans of World War Z; however, I wish it had had more of the stories I'd enjoyed.

The Ugly
Zombies.  Horrible, mindless, flesh-eating zombies.

It's bound to make you queasy at some point.