Review - Eat, Brains, Love By: Jeff Hart

I use Grammarly's plagiarism checker because Skynet is the future.

Title: Eat, Brains, Love
Author: Jeff Hart
Publisher: HarperTeen, 352 Pages (October 1st 2013)
From: Amazon Vine/the Publisher
Format: ARC
Add to: Goodreads
Order a copy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, The Book Depository, Amazon UK

Synopsis: Two teenage zombies search for brains, love, and answers in this surprisingly romantic and laugh-out-loud funny debut novel with guts.

Jake Stephens was always an average, fly-under-the-radar guy. The kind of guy who would never catch the attention of an insanely popular girl like Amanda Blake-or a psychic teenage government agent like Cass. But one day during lunch, Jake's whole life changed. He and Amanda suddenly locked eyes across the cafeteria, and at the exact same instant, they turned into zombies and devoured half their senior class.

Now Jake definitely has Amanda's attention-as well as Cass's, since she's been sent on a top-secret mission to hunt them down. As Jake and Amanda deal with the existential guilt of eating their best friends, Cass struggles with a growing psychic dilemma of her own-one that will lead the three of them on an epic journey across the country and make them question what it means to truly be alive. Or undead.

Eat, Brains, Love is a heartwarming and bloody blend of romance, deadpan humor, and suspense that fans of Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies will devour. With its irresistibly dry and authentic teen voice, as well as a zombie apocalypse worthy of AMC's The Walking Dead, this irreverent paperback original will leave readers dying for the sequel that's coming in Summer 2014.

Review: 3 Stars - Eat, Brains, Love by Jeff Hart takes teens to a new level in the form of zombies on the run from an evil government agency, trying to keep them under wraps from the general public. It’s often comical, and when not, is filled with just enough teenage angst as the two characters fight the urge to eat human flesh.

One thing that I enjoyed about this title is that it’s told in alternating points of view between Jake, high school student turned zombie and Cass, a psychic with the top secret agency who are out to keep all zombie outbreaks covered up.

Jake is your run of the mill teenage guy, before and even after becoming a zombie. He’s just your average guy next door except he’s a bit awkward and maybe a bit lazy because his idea of a great weekend is hanging out in his basement playing video games, this after sleeping half the day away. Okay wait, I guess we can all be that way at times, I mean I love being lazy, hanging out in bed reading the day away. So nothing wrong about his idea of fun lol. His inner dialogue was the highlight and without a doubt highly entertaining.

And Jake has a sidekick on his crazy zombie adventure – Amanda. She’s the snarky popular girl who’s beautiful and out of everyone’s league. The girl who’s unapproachable and the conversations between her and Jake had me rolling my eyes one minute and snorting with that kind of half laugh where you want it to be really funny the next. I’m not sure that either of these characters knew what to expect in the other, once they were forced to work together to try to make it out… alive? Dead? Undead? Well, whatever they are… and since they are zombies they want to remain that way while searching for a possible cure.

And Cass…  I wasn’t sure what to think of her. As the story progressed I felt more and more sorry for her rather than the two teens who just turned into zombies. Cass is stuck working for this government agency that is quickly changing the plans on her and she doesn’t know what to do who to trust or how to get out alive let alone try to save Jake and Amanda’s lives too.

So much of the story was predictable hence the 3 star rating and that part really bummed me out. I was also expecting this to be extremely funny and while there were a couple parts that were humorous it failed a bit in that aspect as well.

I liked the characters, I like that it was written in dual points of view so I could see both sides of the story, from the zombie’s aspect and the secret government agency’s side of things. I enjoyed how these characters were teens through and through and Hart didn’t deviate from who these teens are.

All in all the ending of the book did leave me with just enough questions to want to see where things go with the characters and the story which left this reader looking forward to the sequel that I’ll be available summer 2014. Fans of zombies and or highly realistic teens will without a doubt enjoy this one. Enjoy!