Review: The Weepers

The Weepers (The Other Life #1) by Susanne Winnacker
Release Date ~ May 17, 2012
Marshall Cavendish
ISBN13: 9780761462750
E-galley received from publisher via Net Galley
Goodreads Synopsis:
3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life.

Sherry and her family have lived sealed in a bunker in the garden since things went wrong up above. Her grandfather has been in the freezer for the last three months, her parents are at each other’s throats and two minutes ago they ran out of food.

Sherry and her father leave the safety of the bunker and find a devastated and empty LA, smashed to pieces by bombs and haunted by ‘Weepers’ - rabid humans infected with a weaponized rabies virus.

While searching for food in a supermarket, Sherry’s father disappears and Sherry is saved by Joshua, a boy-hunter. He takes her to Safe-haven, a tumble-down vineyard in the hills outside LA, where a handful of other survivors are picking up the pieces of their ‘other lives’. As she falls in love for the first time, Sherry must save her father, stay alive and keep Joshua safe when his desire for vengeance threatens them all.
A couple years back I had a slight obsession with a little movie starring Will Smith called I Am Legend (oh, and Omegan Man. I liked that one too). So when I was reading The Weepers and started to notice a similar feel of that story to the movie, I was THRILLED.

The Weepers is a great zombie book, and while it lacks in the creativity department as it isn't a very original story, the pacing is superb making it a very fast, thrilling read that's insanely difficult to put down.

1. Excellent pacing that holds your interest:
   This is the main thing that grabbed me about The Weepers, as I've rarely read a book with nearly flawless pacing. The suspense picks up almost immediately, and continues throughout the entire book. Turning the pages frantically is like anxiously watching a zombie movie, knowing something bad is going to happen and you're just wondering when it will pop out!
   
2. Dynamics of Sherry's family:
   I've come to really appreciate the inclusion of families in YA books, because so often this is something that's looked over. Sherry's family is far from perfect, but I liked seeing how they interacted with one another and tried their best to work together and help each other as much as they could in crazy circumstances. Each member of the family was able to find a way they could help the other members - Sherry and her dad are willing to go out in search of food or other people, her younger brother (with some convincing) begins to see that he needs to stay behind for the others, and even her younger sister who's very young finds little ways to help out.
3. Great book for fans of zombie films:
   Most people are surprised by this but I'm a big fan of zombie movies. I like zombie movies that are so bad and cheesy, that they're good ;) I even like Resident Evil (for real- I love those movies and how ridiculously crazy they are. And that music? It's like a zombie rave soundtrack). 28 Days Later, I Am Legend, etc- you name it! If I haven't seen one yet, I'll still probably like it. And this one was so fantastic. It has all the elements I love included in a zombie story - government conspiracy, scientific mistakes/corruption, killer zombies, and some characters you don't want to see die so you keep rooting for them, but then some of them die off anyways. Secret hide outs. Possible survivor towns. LOVE IT.

But I'll admit that this isn't entirey original either. I haven't read many zombie books, so I didn't mind this but all of these elements are familiar ones. The difference, and what makes The Weepers so good, is that it's well-written and lacks some of the cheesiness and silliness that some times happens in zombie stories. It's a very fast read and a good start to a series.
The one thing I found kind of weird was Sherry's habit of counting the days or minutes for everything. And these numbers were often in the THOUSANDS. At first, it made sense since they'd been in isolation for so long that she'd keep track of things (nothing better to do, right?) but she continually did this throughout the book, even at times where it didn't make sense. She knew how many days it had been since she last did anything at all. Almost like she had a superpower for counting. It took away from the story after a while, and I didn't think it added that much (except to highlight the idea of "the other life").

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