****This is more of a 3.5/5 but since we still can't do half stars....****

Warm Bodies was originally introduced to me in movie form. It was one I remember seeing the previews for but didn't watch until relatively recently (like the last year). I really liked the idea of the story and the movie was pretty good, so when I found out it was a book I thought I should investigate (although that also took quite a long time to actually do). I found this audiobook on YouTube after having watched a playthrough of The Last of Us and having some serious zombie story cravings. And if it tells you anything, it's short and only took me two shifts at work to finish (not listening to it the whole time). It was pretty fast paced and a very interesting story concept which I'll get into now:

In this world the zombie virus has taken over. But not in the normal "zombies are mindless and only hunger for human flesh" type of way. Our main character, who can only remember that his name started with an "R" so that is what he is known as, is a zombie. He has some very deep thoughts but has a very hard time voicing them, and only feeds on human flesh out of necessity. Zombies live in colonies, though their understanding of their existence is very loose, and there are plenty of differences between living humans and zombies. But when R and his buddies go on a raid for flesh, he bites into the brain of one of the teenagers they have taken by surprise, and relives some of the memories of his meat. Enter Julie, a living girl who R sees in the memories and has taken a liking to, and brings back to live in the zombie colony. But spending time with Julie makes R realize that they aren't so different after all, and he begins to think more like a human again. Can the zombie virus be beaten just by showing more compassion for what was once food?

I thought the story was unique and interesting, but it was a little confusing at times. I had a hard time following what was going on sometimes with Perry's memories, especially when R started having them more frequently without eating more brain. But I'll probably chalk that up to me being distracted with work and slightly tuning out at some points. Another thing that knocked off a star was besides R, there really wasn't much character development. Although the entire story kind of revolved around character growth and how they were learning they could reverse the zombie virus to have them turn back into humans, I felt like the other characters were kind of blah. Julie really didn't care that she was taken into a zombie society, had the capacity to be a really interesting character, and just kind of fell flat for me. She claimed to have done "bad" things in her past, starting at a very young age, and then was just really dull and didn't really try much to be a better person besides sticking beside R when the living were after him. I mean, I guess that the world falling apart would do that to someone, make them dull and not care about things that are happening around them because everything is so hopeless, but I prefer characters who try to see the light and have hope. Just a personal preference.

If you're looking for an easy book to listen to for free, I would definitely recommend Warm Bodies. The story is interesting and unique and relatively fast paced, and if you listen to it better than I did you may like it even more!