Book Log: Generation Dead

[penmage]

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

Phoebe has always been a goth girl, and she's never really fit in with the popular crew. But up until now, she's usually been below their radar. Not anymore--not since she fell for Tommy Williams.

What makes Tommy Williams unique is that, technically, Tommy is dead. For reasons no one really understands, dead teenagers in America are coming back to life. Referred to as the living impaired, biotically different, or, less politely, as zombies or worm feasts, undead teenagers are attending schools, walking and talking among the living.

Mostly, they keep to themselves. But Phoebe's fascination with Tommy is breaking barriers and changing the rules. It's disturbing to everyone--from the popular kids to her best friend Margi, to boy-next-door football star Adam, who has just begun to realize his feelings for Phoebe. Some people are ready to embrace the new and different--and some want to stop it, no matter how.

This book starts very slow, and at the beginning just feels like another teen novel--albeit one with zombies in the mix. But it doesn't feel like a zombie novel--indeed, at the beginning, it hardly feels like the zombies are zombies at all. More like they're a metaphor for some other minority or misunderstood group. Like if you replaced "undead" with "gay" you'd have the same book.

And that never quite goes away. But then it gets more interesting and more thoughtful. While we never find out exactly why the dead teenagers are coming back, once the living characters start interacting with the undead, this becomes a seriously compelling teen read.

The reason it works is because of the characters, living and dead both. They feel real. Phoebe lingers dangerously on the border of being a Mary Sue, but manages to just barely stay on the other side of the line. Adam feels like a real kid. Tommy and Karen especially are utterly compelling--Karen's fascinating with food is heartbreaking.

The novel raises all sorts of interesting questions about the legality of the undead, and the potential that there is some sort of special ops team hunting them down--not to mention the possibility that the Undead Studies workstudy program is actually involved in something sinister.

All these questions are raised, enough to whet the palate, but not answered. I assume there's a sequel in the works--at least I hope so. At the very least, I found the end to be very abrupt--I felt like I was left hanging.

I wanted more out of this book, but I'm not sure that's fair. It's an interesting read that supposes about what would happen if undead kids really did attend high school--the discrimination, the fascinating, the problems--even the way that, at the start of the book, most of the living students never interacted with the undead, and only knew gossip about them.

It feels realistic. It feels possible. The dialogue feels natural. I'll be interested to see where else Daniel Waters takes this setup.