I finally finished reading Zone One by Colson Whitehead, which I have been struggling through for the past week. The cover describes it as ‘a zombie novel with brains’ and I think that part of my problem with the book is that I am really not into the whole zombies thing. (Why did I choose to read the book then? Well, that is a valid question. The answer is that it was chosen by the book group I have recently joined. I would not have picked it to read myself, and even if for some reason I had picked it myself, I probably would have abandoned it halfway through. But I felt obligated to finish it so I can properly discuss it when the group meets in a few weeks.)

The book is set some time after a rather vague zombie plague apocalypse situation. The main character works as part of a team cleaning out Zone One, which is part of New York, tracking down any zombie stragglers. The book covers three days of his life there, while multiple flashbacks give his perspective of the plague and the events after that.

On one hand it is very well written with a real literary style. I can see why people are praising it as being an intelligent take on the whole zombie craze (albeit a touch pretentious at times, I thought). But on the other hand I found it really, unbearably boring. No amount of stylish writing can make up for the dreary lack of plot. I may be biased by my general lack of interest in the subject, but the book did nothing to get my attention either. I really did not enjoy it at all.