The Ladybug Reads...: Review

The New Hunger (Warm Bodies #1.5)
by Isaac Marion
Date: 2013
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Reading level: NA
Book type: prose novella
Pages: 192
Format: e-book
Source: library

The end of the world didn’t happen overnight.

After years of societal breakdowns, wars and quakes and rising tides, humanity was already near the edge. Then came a final blow no one could have expected: all the world’s corpses rising up to make more.

Born into this bleak and bloody landscape, twelve-year-old Julie struggles to hold on to hope as she and her parents drive across the wastelands of America, a nightmarish road trip in search of a new home.

Hungry, lost, and scared, sixteen-year-old Nora finds herself her brother’s sole guardian after her parents abandon them in the not-quite-empty ruins of Seattle.

And in the darkness of a forest, a dead man opens his eyes. Who is he? What is he? With no clues beyond a red tie and the letter “R,” he must unravel the grim mystery of his existence—right after he learns how to think, how to walk, and how to satisfy the monster howling in his belly. The New Hunger is a glimpse of the past and a path to an astonishing future...

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I've been wanting to read this prequel novella for years, ever since I read (and absolutely loved) Warm Bodies. At that time, though, I couldn't get access, being Canadian and all... and I eventually forgot about it. Fast forward a few years, and our library has it in its collection. I'm all about short books these days, so a novella sounded like a good idea.

At first, I wondered why this prequel was listed on Goodreads as #1.5. But after reading it, I get it. While most of the events (save for the first and last chapters) take place before the events in Warm Bodies, readers who aren't familiar with that book probably wouldn't get much out of this one.

Those first and last chapters were actually my favourite parts of the whole book, where Marion goes all poetic and we get a glimpse of the voice that made Warm Bodies so special. This book, unlike Warm Bodies, is told in multiple third-person points of view. We get to see the backstories of three of the characters in the novel (R, Julie, and Nora). I expected this book to be mostly about R, or even Julie... but I felt like it was more Nora's story. It's heartbreaking, and I hope she gets some more page time and resolution in the sequel, The Burning World.

There's not too much plot here; it's more of a fleshing-out of the characters that we met in Warm Bodies. R, Julie, Nora, Julie's dad, and M all make an appearance, along with Julie's mom and Nora's little brother, Addis. The problem with unfamiliar characters in a prequel who don't appear in the main book is that you know going in that things don't end well for them. Still, it was nice to see a little more development of the main characters with these secondary characters as foils.

So why didn't I give this book a higher rating? A couple of reasons. First, like I mentioned, there's not much plot. It could sort of be considered an origin story, I guess, although we don't really get enough answers for that, either (some of the characters are still a bit of a mystery). Second, it's a bit rough, editing-wise. A few spots could've used a bit more polish to get rid of contradictions and continuity issues. (Also, why doesn't Julie have asthma? Didn't she carry around an inhaler for most of Warm Bodies?) Mainly, though, this book just didn't suck me in, and I attribute that to the fact that it's not told by R, like Warm Bodies is. His voice is what I loved the most about that book. The Burning World appears to go back to his first-person point of view, so it will be interesting to see whether or not Marion can recapture the lovely, poetic voice of his unusual zombie character.

All in all, this novella is worth reading if you're a fan of Warm Bodies and want to know a bit more about the characters and the world they inhabit. If you haven't read Warm Bodies, definitely read that one first; you'll get way more out of The New Hunger if you read the books in the order Goodreads has indicated.

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