Lindsay's Review: Never Slow Dance With A Zombie

Never Slow Dance With a Zombie by E. Van Lowe

Series: None
Genre: Zombies, Young Adult, Fantasy
Rating: ★★½
Pages: 256Published by Tor Teens on August 18th, 2009
Date Finished: July 22, 2013
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Principal Taft's 3 Simple Rules for Surviving a Zombie Uprising:
Rule #1: While in the halls, walk slowly and wear a vacant expression on your face. Zombies won't attack other zombies.
Rule #2:  Never travel alone.  Move in packs.  Follow the crowd.  Zombies detest blatant displays of individuality.
Rule #3:  If a zombie should attack, do not run. Instead, throw raw steak at to him.  Zombies love raw meat. This display of kindness will go a long way.
On the night of her middle school graduation, Margot Jean Johnson wrote a high school manifesto detailing her goals for what she was sure would be a most excellent high school career. She and her best friend, Sybil, would be popular and, most important, have boyfriends. Three years later, they haven't accomplished a thing!
Then Margot and Sybil arrive at school one day to find that most of the student body has been turned into flesh-eating zombies. When kooky Principal Taft asks the girls to coexist with the zombies until the end of the semester, they realize that this is the perfect opportunity to live out their high school dreams. All they have to do is stay alive....

When I first saw the title of this book, I instantly wanted to read it. Zombies and comedy are an easy way to win me over, and this book, though a bit young for me, was a good read.

As I started reading, I felt a bit nervous to read this book because I soon came to realize that I may be a tad old to be reading this. Don't get me wrong - anyone, no matter what age they are can read whatever book they want to. However I tend to read books that are more mature or are on a serious level.

The first time I read Margot's name, I had to reread it three times and try to figure out if a. it was a spelling error or b. how to pronounce it. It took me a while to get past the urge to call her Margaret but soon the name grew on me, and it suited her well. I really liked Margot's character. She was witty, funny, sarcastic and honestly, couldn't keep her mouth shut at times. She's striving throughout the book which most kids in high school do and in the end, she finds out the real truth about what popularity is. Even if it takes a school full of zombies to figure it out.

Now, onto the zombies. They were not what I expected, and this is why I felt like the book was young for me. There was no flesh eating, no gore, no dying despite becoming undead. You were bitten, and you still went to school, went to your classes, came home and your parents suspected nothing but you were going through a phase. This was strange for me. What is so horrifying about being bitten if you are a semi-harmless zombie?

Back to Margot, and why I like her. She made a zombie who used to be her crush her boyfriend. To me, that was hilarious, even if she ended up learning something about herself and all that fun kind of stuff.  

When I first starting writing this review, I gave it one star. Then when I thought about the book more and the plot and characters, I realized that I was being biased because I felt it was - here is the world again - young. The plot, the description, the dialogue and characters, were all well done. But I think if I were to have read it a few years ago, I would have loved it a lot more. The beginning was slow and for a while, I wondered, where are the zombies? To me, there was too much teenage issues going on and not enough zombies. Another biased opinion of mine.

To get more into the low rating, which I generously bumped up one and a half stars, I thought it was strange that the main character didn't have much of a problem with her entire school being zombies. And also that no one really thought it was strange that their children were slightly green, wearing the same tattered clothes for oh, what was it? Seven weeks? That bugged me and was a major plot hole in my opinion. The ending, also which turned out to be satisfying, I felt was dragged out and by the last few pages, I was honestly feeling stressed about just finishing the book and getting over it with.

If you aren't discouraged enough, I do recommended reading this book. I think it's a one time read kind of book, but really enjoyed the wittiness of the main character and how she really grew throughout the book. It's also a good read to those in high school or just starting out - I know if I had read it, I probably would haven't felt so nervous about impressing other people and trying hard to not stand out.