“What can we become?”

** Trigger warning for rape. **

“For a variety of reasons, some good, most bad, I am famous. I am the first of the Dead to challenge the plague, the one who triggered a change that’s still spreading. I am the disease that cured itself. And I am the monster that kidnapped General Grigio’s daughter and brainwashed her into falling in love with it. I am the demon that lured legions of skeletons to the stadium and caused the deaths of hundreds of soldiers, and that may have personally infected General Grigio and thrown his converting corpse off the stadium roof. I am the reason there are zombies roaming their streets and eyeing their children. I am the reason nothing makes sense.”

“He thinks goodness must be more than just kindness. It must have a hard frame to hold it together. How can you stitch a wound if you faint at the sight of blood? How can you do good in a world you refuse to see?”

“Have I missed something? What I just saw was gruesome and tragic, yes, but also beautiful. I saw a woman pull herself out of her grave and climb up to whatever’s next. I saw a woman save her own soul. What did they see?”

Several months have passed since the end of WARM BODIES: since an unassuming zombie met a girl, ate her boyfriend’s brain, took her back to his 747 parked at the kinda-sorta abandoned airport to listen to Sinatra records, and accidentally discovered the cure for the plague ravaging humanity. Since that girl took that boy back to her fortified home at CitiStadium to meet her father, leading to his infection and suicide, the invasion (and retreat) of the Boneys, and the dawn of a new era.

Or so that was the hope.

When we catch up with some of the most memorable protagonists in literary history – certainly in zombie fiction, anyway – we find that Julie and R have shacked up in a little fixer-upper in the ‘burbs surrounding the stadium, to help spread the cure beyond their bounds of their enclave. Their success has been halting, at best: the Fleshies, unlike the Boneys, are unimpressed with what Julie and R have to offer.

Meanwhile, Nora has fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming a nurse. In addition to the Living, Nora ministers to the Dead as they make the slow, laborious journey from Mostly-Dead to Nearlies, and then back to the land of the Living. While the Gleam – remember that yellow glow in Julie’s eyes? – heals “the rot” that eats at the Fleshies, it is powerless to fix the wounds inflicted from without. In R’s words, “Wounds aren’t the plague. […] The damage we do to ourselves is our responsibility.”

Another plague haunts our heroes: doubt. Julie and R don’t know how they conquered the plague, let alone how to replicate the results. R’s return to humanity has proven slow and tedious; he struggles to master CURIOUS GEORGE, while his good friend M, much later to the party, can spit out polysyllabic sentences without missing a beat. And since so many of her patients expire on the operating table, mere seconds after rediscovering their long-lost humanity, Nora is understandably careening toward depression and burnout.

If it feels like I’m giving away the plot, fear not: this all happens in the first tenth of the book. With the odds already stacked against them, Marion introduces a new, more horrific villain into the mix: a shady private military corporation called the Axiom Group. They have a plan for the United States – North America? The world? – and Uncategorized Dead like R don’t fit into their blueprints. Before Julie and R (and Marcus and Nora? PLEASE DOG MAKE THIS HAPPEN!) can even begin to spread the cure, they must go up against an even crueler and more formidable adversary than the zombie plague: human greed.

So, look. I loved WARM BODIES. Love love loved it. Every time I read it, I am reduced to a puddle of slobber and tears. If it doesn’t quite make my Top Ten Favorite Books of All Time, it’s definitely in the Top Twenty. (What can I say, Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler are stiff competition, okay.) When THE BURNING WORLD came up on NetGalley, I immediately requested a copy…and then sat on it for more than a year. I had lots of personal stuff going on, it’s true, but also I was terrified to read it. Terrified that it wouldn’t be in the same stratosphere as WARM BODIES. I mean, it was so amazing, what are the chances that such strange magic can strike twice?

The answer is…not entirely terrible?

It’s hard to compare THE BURNING WORLD to WARM BODIES, since the two are such different beasts. Whereas I’d categorize WARM BODIES as a zombie horror romance, THE BURNING WORLD feels a little more traditionally action-adventurey. Again to quote R, who is eminently quotable: “I am finding it hard to be here, in the present, with all its explosions and car chases and covert operations.”

This isn’t to say that the plot of THE BURNING WORLD isn’t “good” (read: entertaining, enjoyable, engaging, imaginative) – it is. This is a great story and, on its own – meaning not in relation to WARM BODIES – I might give it five stars. Four and a half at the very least. I was on the edge of my seat for nearly all of the 512 pages. And the writing is just as beautiful and poetic as that in WARM BODIES. But the story lacked some of the magic and wonder that made its predecessor so unforgettable, so enchanting…game-changing, even. With its all-too-human, all-too-recognizable, all-too-fleshy Big Bad, THE BURNING WORLD feels a little more mundane. WARM BODIES, on the other hand? Witchcraft.

But there are so many things I adored in THE BURNING WORLD (STUMP SISTERS!). R finally remembers his First Life, and it is freaky and sad and really kind of horrifying, and makes him into a character that’s even more complicated and sticky than he was before. Julie and Nora meet their idol, and she does not disappoint. Our heroes leave home, traverse the country on what may very well be the last functioning commercial airliner in existence, and ultimately decide to stay and fight. The Undead Army rises. A Mostly mother sacrifices her potential life to save her adopted Nearly children. Monsters reclaim their humanity and humans behave like monsters. Everyone loses someone, but some of these losses can still be undone.

In sum: if you loved WARM BODIES, you may or may not love THE BURNING WORLD. If you hated WARM BODIES, you may or may not hate THE BURNING WORLD. “Things were so easy then. So simple and sweet. Just me and my kidnapped crush and her boyfriend’s brain in my pocket.”

Atria, please please please publish THE LIVING. We need to see what these people – Living and Dead, Nearlies and Mostlies and even the Boneys – will become.

I read Warm Bodies when it caught my eye at the library and couldn't talk about it enough. I was pumped it had a sequel.. Maybe sequels just shouldn't be written. Just have authors come up with new premises every time. Of course, that wouldn't have worked for GOT> Or could it?

I never expected to like Warm Bodies as much as I did and I never expected to be eagerly awaiting the next book! This is everything I wanted from a book and it happened to have Zombies. I loved R's character and found his story compelling because he didn't remember who he was. I got to make up my own ideas of him. R is recovering from death.

In Burning World, R is back and he is joined by Julie. He's no longer dead and he has to relearn how it is to be human. He still doesn't remember who he was and he's totally fine with that. Burning World is more of a physical journey than Warm Bodies, but Marion does a compelling job of drawing me and and grossing me out all at once.

Isaac Marion is a gifted storyteller. His writing, and stories, are beautiful, poetic, and oddly relatable and very human, given his inhuman characters. I LOVED Warm Bodies and The Burning World was a long-awaited return to a world I loved and missed and did not disappoint.

I think most people have heard of Warm Bodies by now, right? It’s a novel that was turned into a movie. It’s a nice spin on zombies regaining their humanity with a mixture of action, romance, and humor. I loved both formats, so I was excited when a sequel was announced. Whoa, I wasn’t expecting just how freaking good The Burning World would be! I don’t want to diminish how good Warm Bodies is, but TBW is almost a different beast. The writing, the plot, and even the characters are better.

Warm Bodies left us with a nice HEA feeling, but oh boy, it was only the beginning of something huge. We’re taken on a thrilling ride with Julie, R, and a few friends as they find themselves embroiled with a sinister organization. What they uncover is craaaaazy! All the while, R’s memories are beginning to surface, and they aren’t exactly welcome. Oh, but are they ever mind-blowing!

I remember loving the characters in WB, but it’s grown even more with this book. Julie still has a temper and is quick to react (which I love), but there’s something deeper to her now that made me ache for her too. And I absolutely adore the friendship between Julie and Nora! M, too!

Seriously, the author does a superb job weaving this completely engrossing tale. I’m truly impressed! At first I was a little disappointed about not getting the full conclusion in this book, but understand that something of this magnitude can’t be condensed and rushed. I’m so damn eager to see how everything turns out!

It's taken years for us to get a sequel to Warm Bodies, but it was worth the wait. This book feels very different than the first book---more adult somehow (Julie turns 20 during the book, but it's more the tone of the book that I'm referring to than the ages of the characters). In this sequel, R is learning how to be human again, and struggling against remembering his past life. He doesn't want to dwell on the past. He just wants to move forward with Julie and help the other zombies crawl back to the world of the living. But the past won't completely let him go, and his avoidance is making it harder for him to re-humanize. Plus, Julie and R learn that there are sinister forces at work in their world---forces that will derail the progress they've made if they let it.

What Fed My Addiction:

Becoming human.
I was engrossed with R's struggle to become fully human again. His body and mind are slowly coming awake, but he doesn't have full control---it's as if he's still partially dead. They actually refer to the different states of being a zombie in that way---there are those who are still completely Dead, those who have a spark of life, those who are approaching being human again, and a few who are nearly there! R is focused on waking up and on becoming a part of the human world (being accepted by it is a whole other matter). He's there emotionally, but his body and mind are sluggish---not quite ready yet. I was fascinated with the zombies' struggle for humanity.

Dark times.
While the first book felt surprisingly light (for a zombie novel), this second book gets a bit grittier and darker. While R is struggling to gain his humanity, in some ways Julie is losing hers---and her hope. Nothing is working out the way she'd hoped---the zombies aren't all coming back to life and flourishing, and the humans aren't accepting the possibility of change. When things start to go awry, they go very awry, and Julie crosses lines she never thought she'd cross (and that R never thought she'd cross). The world is dangerous, and Julie has to become dangerous to survive in it.

The writing style.
It's been a while since I read the first book, but I don't remember being so captivated by the writing. Marion's style seems more poetic and philosophical in this book---to go along with R's burgeoning humanity.

Revelations.
Throughout the book we slowly learn more and more about who R was before he became a zombie. I have to confess that I suspected a lot of it very early on, but there were definitely many surprising details.

What Left Me Hungry for More:

The collective "we."
Some sections of the book are narrated by a sort of mysterious "we." These parts seemed even more poetic, filled with library metaphors that seemed to symbolize a depository of humanity or a collective consciousness. I never quite fully understood who we was, but I think it's supposed to be the human consciousnesses that have been suppressed by the zombies. R thinks of his past-life human soul (for lack of a better way to describe it) as a man in the basement. R doesn't want to let him out because he doesn't want to dwell on who he was before. So, I kind of got the impression that the we that narrated is a sort of collection of those human souls, waiting to impart knowledge to the zombies. They could (kind of) communicate with the zombies ... I don't know. If it seems like I'm not explaining it very well, that's because I didn't 100% understand it myself. And while contemplating it is mentally stimulating, during my reading my confusion sometimes pulled me out of the story a bit. (Plus, sometimes the library metaphors and the poetic language bordered on being too much for me.)

So, for me, this sequel was actually better than the first book. I look forward to finding out where Marion takes us with the next installment! I give this one 4/5 Stars.

DNF @ 13%

I had been heading towards a slump so that may be part of the reason for my complete intolerance and unwillingness to give this a chance, but this just did not work for me. Warm Bodies was an original (and slightly disturbing) tale of a zombie falling in love with a human, subsequently regaining his humanity in the process. It was a moving and touching novel in the unlikeliest of genres. The New Hunger was even more fantastic, well written, and it made me more excited than I had been for The Burning World to release. But before I had even hit double digits in progress, I was already ready to call it quits. This section was at 7%:

‘Her irises are the usual metallic gray, but as I stare into them, they flicker. A brief glint, like a flake of gold in the sand of a deep river.’

Very pretty words. Marion can definitely string some adjectives and metaphors together but then he had to go and mess it all up.

“What is it?” Julie asks in an awed whisper.
“I have no idea. I’ve never had less idea about anything. We’ve been calling it ‘the Gleam.’ Every once in a while it just… happens, and the Dead get a little less dead.”

And that is all we get by way of explanation.

It was just such a lame and half-assed attempt at explaining the whole plot point. The dead coming back to life after being zombies, being dead… and you give it some fancy capitalized name and that’s supposed to be sufficient? Sorry, but that just doesn’t work for me. I continued reading up to 13% where the settlement is attacked by a rival settlement and it officially became just like all other post-apocalyptic/zombie tales that I’ve already read at least half a dozen times. Does it switch it up somehow and become original and memorable again? Maybe. The introduction into this unexpected sequel was so lackluster that it wasn’t interesting enough for me to stick around to find out.

**Live 2/7/17**

I feel like I waited sooooo long for this book, when in actuality it was probably less time then I wait for Diana Gabaldon to come out with a book. It just felt like forever because I seriously loved Warm Bodies. I loved the book, and I loved the movie. I also loved The New Hunger as a novella. The glimpse we got of Nora’s history, and the tie in of M and R. It was the perfect follow up/middle book. Have I said it enough? I loved everything about this series.

While there were aspects of Burning World that I really liked, I have to admit that I’m not quite as in love with it as I was the others. I think my main problem was that the story felt completely disassociated with the previous stories. This wasn’t a problem with the writing, or the tangible connections. Isaac Marion did an amazing job of tying together what we already knew of R and everything we’re now discovering. I never felt loose ends, and I didn’t have a problem believing it. It was just a feeling, like this was an all new story with the same characters. Julie was the worst culprit. I struggled with what was motivating her. Maybe I just don’t have that ice in me that the end of the world caused her, if I’m being fair. She may be very believable, having gone through everything she has (since the world collapsed). I just personally felt disconnected.

I also thought there was just too much happening. I felt like so much was crammed into this one book. The flow was completely off, which isn’t something I felt with Warm Bodies or The New Hunger. So much happened, that I ended up feeling like nothing really happened… I’m betting that when I read the conclusion I’ll be saying that books 2 & 3 could have been combined into one epic conclusion. We shall see.

Despite my complaints, you’ll notice down at the bottom of this review that I gave Burning World 4 feathers. Part of that is simply nostalgia. (Hey! I’m allowed to rate however I want!) And part of it was that there was a lot that I did like. I actually highlighted the crap out of this book, because the writing was off the charts. Isaac Marion has a wonderful way of expressing thoughts. I also loved the tie in to what’s happening in our world today, like including Trumps wall, because it shows a connection from our reality and where R is in Warm Bodies. That is my definition of stunning world building.

I also loved that everything is coming full circle. It’s not just R & Julie, who’s stories are being fleshed out. (Pun not intended.) It’s also reading where Nora’s is heading. She’s on a collision course and she doesn’t even know it. THAT was my favorite part of The Burning World.

I also loved Sprout, and I’m looking forward to finding out her big secret. There’s something there, I just know it.

Finally, the star of the show, R… We know most everything now, and it’s not pretty. Yet, I still love him. R & Marcus are the characters that stick with me even after I put the book away. They both deserve their happy endings. R with Julie, and M with Nora. Because I think they’re endgame and I love it.