Book Diary #1: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

book VS movie

Hey, welcome to the first entry in my book diary!

So the first book I cracked down and finished reading was Warm Bodies. I stared the book a couple months prior, but I didn’t get much of a chance to finish it until after I was done with school.

This is one of the few occasions where I had seen the movie before reading the book. I saw this movie probably on its opening night over a year ago. I loved the movie with its different take on zombies and not to mention that the love story was cute. I knew there was a book though before I heard about the movie because I had remembered seeing the book at my work. I knew even then that it was a book I wanted to read. Finally, I did.

Book to Movie: how does it compare?

For the most part the overall story-line between the book and the movie is obviously the same, but the film makers gave themselves a lot of liberty with this one.

What was similar? The love story was the same, how eating brains gave the zombie their victims memories is the same, and the zombie cure is the same.

What was so different? There were quite a few differences. The boneys don’t start out as bad guys, in fact they start out as the leaders of the zombie community in the airport. On that note, the book shows the reader a greater indication of these zombies intelligence in their ability to keep human traditions going after death and reanimation (they have weddings, sex—sort of, school, and even church). The characters’ appearances are pretty different, mostly R though, who seems to be a bit older in the book than the movie. I don’t think Julie’s dad dies in the movie, but he sure does in the book. Honestly, the list goes on, but to continue would be to nitpick.

Verdict: the movie and the book are actually pretty different, but the film still grasps the overall story quite well.

Book Quality:

I actually really enjoyed this book, probably even more so than the movie. There was so much more to the story here than the movie let you in on. Sometimes the details of this dystopian and strange no-so-distant future of a world could be a bit tiresome and slow, but it made for a stronger story.

The interaction with R and Perry inside of R’s head is really probably the greatest thing the book has over the movie. The way Perry really paints the picture of the human world for R and pushes him to cure himself really makes for some nice world building and character building all at the same time; you really only get one glimpse of this in the movie during one of R’s dreams.

Warm Bodies tells an intriguing tale that reminds us that our sense of humanity is what makes us a unique species and that it is some to be considered precious. Life isn’t just about surviving it.

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What do you think about Warm Bodies the book? Is the book better? The movie better? Let me know in the comments!