Book It With Briana

A late review of my first book club read from this month, and to say this was a struggle to get through would be too kind to the mental toll this book had on me. To start us off in Zomromcom by Olivia Dade, our MC Edie (could not stand this name or how often it was said) tries to fight off a zombie with a burrito and then convinces herself she died. I spent most of this book, at least what I read of it anyway, wishing she would not have made it past that first chapter. For a character based in a zombie apocalypse (but also not actually because they had the zombies contained for twenty years for some reason) Edie had no fighting or survival skills.

This story had too much going on but not much of which actually made sense when put together. It was confusing on why there were so many different mythical creatures added to the plot other than to set the scene for other connected stories. Edie was established as the sunshine of the story, but this over thirty year old woman read more as someone who was still in her teens. She carries around a trauma from a decade prior that seemingly runs her life and forces her to risk her own life time and time again, as well as the love interest Gaston (a vampire who she knew as Chad up until the burrito incident).

I know this book was supposed to be a light hearted Romcom set in the world of a zombie takeover, but I couldn’t get past how cringy the dialogue and scenes were written. The characters ended up falling in love after two days, even though they have lived next to each other for years and he lied to her for that entire time. I also couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a large plot point was Gaston being a social media influencer for makeup and clothing. Plus the constant sing-along joke regarding his name got to be annoying and wasn’t as cute as the author seemed to think it was.

Not to mention the fact that every life or death situation the couple came across was completely avoidable, but because Edie had a complex from her trauma a decade ago, Gaston was put in situations he didn’t want to be in so that she didn’t die. I find it difficult to enjoy books where the story is driven by a character who makes horrible decisions constantly with no growth as the story goes along. Most of the time I can enjoy a cute low-stakes book, but this book was not that for me. I ended up DNFing the book at around 70% because I could not get past the cringe and the too-fast-in-love relationship that doesn’t fit within the story.

In the zombie romances I have read and enjoyed in the past, there was a lot more build up to the relationship that gets established through the dangers of the zombies. This story had little to no build up and felt like insta-love even though that could have been softened through hidden feelings since the main characters were neighbors.

I could go on for way too long describing all of the things I didn’t enjoy about this book, but I will just leave it as it is. I would rate this book 1/5 and would not recommend this book even to someone who knew not to take it seriously. I looked into other stories by this author and have come to the conclusion that this author’s work is just not a good fit for me.

Thank you for reading. If you have read this book and enjoyed it please let me know what you liked about it. I’m always curious how the other side feels and would love to hear your thoughts.