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My Life As a White Trash Zombie
White Zombie #1
Diana Rowland

Daw Books Inc. July 2011/978-0-7564-0675-2
Urban fantasy / Horror
Amazon

Reviewed by P.L. Blair

 

White Trash Puts New Twist On Horror Staple

Angel Crawford is a self-branded Loser – a high school dropout with a pill habit and a criminal record.
Then she wakes up in a hospital ER with memories of a horrible car crash – but not a mark on her – and the police say they found her wandering naked … suffering from an overdose …

And there's more: She receives an anonymous letter telling her there's a job waiting for her at the county morgue – an offer she doesn't dare turn down.

Before long, the pill habit and criminal record have become the least of Angel's worries. Especially after she develops this craving for human brains …

If you like your zombies in the traditional style of the Hollywood movies, My Life As a White Trash Zombie may not appeal to you. Despite the subject matter, there's little horror – and a lot of subtle humor – in Rowland's novel.

But if you delight in books that reinvent the mold, you'll love this one! Angel is smart, wise-cracking, totally aware of the irony in the twist her life has taken –
And as bewildered as the rest of us would be if we awoke with a huge – and significant – piece of our lives missing … on the receiving end of cryptic notes from a mysterious “someone” (Angel begins referring to him as Anonymous Letter Guy) … and the dawning realization that consumption of human brains is important to our health ...
Here, for example, when she receives a note that tells her “If you crave it, eat it. Trust your instincts”:

“But I'd been craving brains. The smell was like chocolate and cookies and biscuits and gravy and everything delicious. It damn near drove me crazy every time I had to touch one. I'd been fighting the cravings the way I'd never fought the urge to take drugs or get drunk.”

Rowland exercises a deft touch in getting her readers inside Angel's head – and at making Angel not only believable but … sympathetic.

Sympathy? For a zombie?

Definitely not Hollywood.

And then … Angel finds herself drawn into a police investigation of a serial killer … who decapitates his victims … and she discovers that she's in danger of being on the predator's list …

White Trash Zombie is fast-paced, fun, with its own weird logic that just pulls you along. And just like Angel, you'll crave more – not brains, but more of Rowland's books.

Trust me. You'll never think of zombies quite the same way again.

Reviews of other titles in this series

My Life As a White Trash Zombie #1
Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues #2
White Trash Zombie Unchained
#3

Reviewer's Note: A different kind of zombie; YA and older
Reviewed 2011
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