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Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?

by Max Brallier (Goodreads Author)

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 560 ratings · 131 reviews

Inside these pages lies unspeakable horror. Bloodsplattering, brain-impaling, flesh-devouring horror. You’ve probably read your fair share of zombie stories. But this time it’s different. No longer can you sit idle as a bunch of fools make all the wrong moves. All hell is about to break loose—and YOU have a say in humanity’s survival.

You have choices to make.

Moral dilemmas...more

Paperback, 384 pages

Published February 8th 2011 by Gallery Books

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Aug 20, 2011 Ceridwen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternate-history, america-and-environs, pulp, reviewed, zombies, choose-your-own-adventure

I find choose your own adventure books incredibly frustrating, though I sure didn't when I was a kid. Even reading something like Meanwhile: Pick Any Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities., which is the absolute top of the heap when it comes to choose your own adventures for children: beautiful paper, well-designed, light-hearted and funny, turns into me paging around in frustration and then throwing it down with a bah. I think reading has periods, though this is a stupid way to put it. I find the boy...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Lori rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-reviewers-copy, signed-by-author, apocalyptic-fiction, fricken-awesome, books-i-read-with-my-kids

Zombies hit Manhattan while you are in the middle of a corporate company meeting. Quicker than you can blink an eye, they are everywhere. People are panicking. The streets are clogged. And you have to make a decision.

Do you:

(a) Hail a cab?
(b) Walk 12 blocks to the subway and head out to Brooklyn?
(c) Run to your apartment?

This is the moment where all those Zombie books and movies are supposed to mean something. How many times did you sit there, on the couch, watching some dumb ass actors make som...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Amber Carson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Choose your adventure style book + Adult themes + Zombies = FREAKIN AWESOME!!

In Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? By Max Brallier You will die over and over and have more fun doing it that you ever thought possible! (Side note- to avoid embarrassing public outburst of laughing out loud and/or cussing when you die, DO NOT read this book in public places)
You and all your friends could read this book and all have different outcomes or endings, your ending will depend on the choices you make t...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Brad rated it 1 of 5 stars

Can You Survive the Zombie Apocolypse? is by no means a good book, and I won't even try to glorify it in any way. What I expected when I bought this was that I was about to be in for a tailor made experience filled with many opportunities to exercise my choices. What I got was a couple of quirky choices, and an overall storyline experience that was far too short for my liking. One of the most dissapointing things I found about this book was the absolute disregard for your choices. You are forced...more Can You Survive the Zombie Apocolypse? is by no means a good book, and I won't even try to glorify it in any way. What I expected when I bought this was that I was about to be in for a tailor made experience filled with many opportunities to exercise my choices. What I got was a couple of quirky choices, and an overall storyline experience that was far too short for my liking. One of the most dissapointing things I found about this book was the absolute disregard for your choices. You are forced to play as the Saint/Paragon/Mesiah complexdouchebag even during your very limited time actually partaking in making the decisions. Don't save the boy getting hit by a train? DEAD. Try to kill the futt bucker who killed one of your friends AND got bitten? DEAD. Seriously, you get killed if you choose to kill him first, but if you just sit around like some tool, trusting the guy who you JUST saw get bitten like two pages ago, you kill him instead. How does that even work? Aside from the choices that don't even matter in the end because they all end in anticlimactic cliff-hangers, The ridiculousness of the situations is just too overwhelming. My initial impression is that this is going to be a legitimate zombie adventure, so I prepare myself for serious concequences...BUT THEN LEGOLAS SHOWS UP TO CRASH THE PARTY!!! I thought to myself when I intially read this, "What the fuck just happened? Why are there loser nerds killing zombies at a Comic-con convention? Why is it so ironic that George Romero is the God of zombies? What happened?" But now that I am older, (About two hours after reading this piece of misleading garbage) and have read all of the other branches of the book, I can confidently say that there was no reason. Why not have a Black Conan cutting zombies into pieces, it sounds cool right? Especially when the results of your seemingly intelligent choices take you to an African safari where there are even more zombies that will try to rustle your jimmies with an unsatisfying amount of suspense. Oh, We're surrounded by zombies and we're sad about it? I feel myself getting flacid. I apologize for the imagery, but that was how much it let me down. The synopsis promised that you would make meaningful moral, pragmatic, psychological, and strategic decisions. And it failed. Badly. The End. Go home and don't read this book.(less)

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Sep 11, 2012 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars

Recommended to Lisa by: Reading these books as a kid

Shelves: 2012, kindle-baby, own

One of my favourite books growing up was a ‘choose your own adventure’ book, where you got a different story every time depending on how you chose to act. My own highly prized book was set during a school museum trip gone horribly wrong, when an electrical storm brings the model dinosaurs to life and they start chomping on you and your schoolfriends. I must have read this book hundreds of times, making sure I’d read every possible permutation of the story.

I was excited to find that not only can...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Sean rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was so excited when I found this Choose Your Own Adventure story for adults. For years I have thought it would be a good idea to expand this genre, which has traditionally been reserved for children's fiction, into stories that adults could enjoy. Needless to say I expected to have a lot of fun reading this book and I did have fun, at least initially. The story line began okay even though it did kind of seem like a cliche from a bad zombie movie, I was still willing to give the book a chance....more

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Sep 12, 2011 Holden Attradies rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: douche-bag 20-something males

Shelves: fiction, zombie, humor

The idea behind this book was incredible, in fact it was an idea I had thought of trying to do (making an adult choose your own adventure story around a zombie outbreak). At first when I heard about this book my thoughts were, "well damn, it's been done no need for me ever to put an thought trying to do it."

So yeah, after reading through this enough times to read most pages I have to say it left me wanting to try and do it better, and I am by no means a good writer at all.

If you are a fairly "av...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Rei rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: gave-up-on

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Following the sad trend of cheesy zombies, this book, along with many of today's zombie-related literature and film, makes zombies seem like a made-for-kids genre, rather than an adult, grotesque, and frightening one.

I grew up watching zombie films and other horror films and thus have a high standard of what is scary. When I was younger, zombies were absolutely horrifying and disturbing. Now they are the latest novelty filled with "cheesiness". Zombies are just not scary anymore...more SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Following the sad trend of cheesy zombies, this book, along with many of today's zombie-related literature and film, makes zombies seem like a made-for-kids genre, rather than an adult, grotesque, and frightening one.

I grew up watching zombie films and other horror films and thus have a high standard of what is scary. When I was younger, zombies were absolutely horrifying and disturbing. Now they are the latest novelty filled with "cheesiness". Zombies are just not scary anymore. Period. They are comedic and trendy. And I hate trends with an utmost passion as they will just about kill anything and cheese anything out.

This book, as I originally suspected would be, turned out to be another exercise in typical zombie cheesiness. As a long-time fan of zombies, I was yet again disappointed to find yet another fine example of zombies-gone-cheesy. Clearly, just another author who decided to cash in the zombie craze of today. A 5-year old can create a zombie story with just as much scare factor as much of the zombie stories polluting our literature and film of today.

I tried getting into this book. I really did. Immediately it was just cheesy and I felt insulted that I was expected to buy this as a zombie story. More like a teen story or a kid's story, just with violence and gore. And anyone can write violence and gore into a story. It doesn't make you an author just because you can.

I mean, c'mon, there's a zombie outbreak and the protagonist decides to go to a strip joint?! Really?! CORNY!!! Just a bad attempt at making the story "edgy" or "hot" with the introduction of a sword-wielding stripper who seems more the protagonist than YOU do when YOU are supposed to be the one who calls the shots as this is supposed to a "CHOOSE YOU OWN ADVENTURE" book! I was wondering when I (in the story) was going to stop being such a punk-ass and actually act like I was in a zombie outbreak and make more sensible choices or at least be given sensible choices to make. Instead I found myself at a strip joint gawking in awe as some hot Asian stripper sliced zombies in half by the dozen!

Sorry. Fuck that. Not good writing. Try again. Wait. No. Don't try again.

Some parts of the story were a bit more sensible and enjoyable than others but for the most part I just found myself grimacing and saying to myself; "Really? That's what happens? O-kay..."

Normally I would expect a "choose-your-own-adventure-book" to be a little on the "kiddie" side but New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry is quoted on the cover saying the story is "devious and very adult". Perhaps Mr. Maberry never saw zombie flicks as a kid and is like many who only know of today's cheesy novelty zombies and only has that as reference. I don't know.

If you enjoy today's zombies, you may enjoy this book. If you are into genuinely disturbing and SCARY zombies, skip this book. It will only enrage you if you don't.(less)

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Apr 06, 2011 Shesten rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned, paperback

Plot Sketch: This is a choose-your-own-adventure style book for adults wherein you are a 25-year old male professional working in Manhattan when all of the sudden Mount Sinai is all of the sudden bursting with flesh-eating, blood-spurting zombies and now you get to make choices in the reading to see where they take you.

Verdict: This book is going to be fantastic for later-teen and adultswho males. But since it's true to its second-person narration - the only style that really works for this type...more Plot Sketch: This is a choose-your-own-adventure style book for adults wherein you are a 25-year old male professional working in Manhattan when all of the sudden Mount Sinai is all of the sudden bursting with flesh-eating, blood-spurting zombies and now you get to make choices in the reading to see where they take you.

Verdict: This book is going to be fantastic for later-teen and adultswho males. But since it's true to its second-person narration - the only style that really works for this type of a novel - and I was a girl, trying to put myself into a male's head, it didn't really work so well for me. I think the hardest part for me was the parts where I was supposedly getting mild erections. Not really something I can relate to, seriously. The other thing I would caution with this one is that there is a lot of strong very strong language. You know going into it that because it's a zombie novel it's going to have violence, and you expect some of the language, but at least on the path that I took (that left me dying because I chose to fight zombies with a toy machine gun) it was excessive - for me. If that's not going to bother you, then you're going to have a lot of fun with this one - especially if you're a guy! My younger bro was here while I was reading it, so I read some of it aloud to him and he's all over it and wants it the second I'm done writing this review - so that tells you something, right? What I would have loved to have seen was an initial choice of gender in the book. Do you want to read it as a female character or as a male one? Most of the pages could have overlapped, because there wasn't anything gender-specific, but it would have made me feel less alienated as a reader.

Location: Manhattan

Favorite Character: Well, on my particular path, I'd have to say that I was my favorite character, by far. I made really stupid choices, yet it took me like 4 really dumb ones to finally die. I rock like that.

Would Change: Girl POV option

Favorite Line: n/a

Good for Monster? I'm not sure. On one hand, I think he might like it, and on the other, I think he might think it's stupid. But that's just my Monster. 17+ males are gonna be all over this one!

People Who Will Like This: 17+ males, Santa Claus, John Wayne, Elizabeth Bennett from Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

People Who Won't Like This: the female YA crowd (well, most of them), Elizabeth Bennett from Pride & Prejudice, Dalai Lama(less)

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Apr 03, 2011 Autumn Moon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Can I survive the zombie apocalypse? Well according to the average outcome from my choices while reading this little gem...umm no apparently I can't, unless I team up with a ninja stripper and hide behind her feathered g-string.
This book is the adult version of all those Choose Your Own Adventure books we read and loved in childhood. Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse is the very definition of a fun read. It's a great way to pass some time while waiting in the doctors office. Each adventure i...more

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Mar 16, 2011 William Bentrim rated it 3 of 5 stars

Can You Survive The Zombie Apocalypse? By Max Brallier

This is a pick your own ending zombie disaster story.

Zombie stories seem to have created their own niche. The last zombie story review I wrote got some of the more vehement comments when I said I wasn’t fond of zombie stories. I’m still not fond of zombie stories but I try and keep an open mind.

This book is billed as a pick your own ending for adults story. I guess some adults will read it but I suspect it will be more of the teen age guy c...more

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Feb 14, 2011 Jasmine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: american

okay I'm labeling this book as american cause it seemed american and I'm too lazy to put any effort into actually checking.

well I've been having some serious trouble committing to books recently. I mean I love them and I keep wanting to commit them but there are so many and the all look so fun. But I read 20 pages and then I get distracted, or then I get busy, and I can't fucking keep up.

the solution to this ZOMBIES. no not really as established I could really give a crap about zombies. But th...more

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Feb 11, 2011 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

This reminded me of those little quizzes you take to see how long you would survive various situations. One was how long you would survive a velociraptor attack. You both were chained to something and I think I lasted 3 minutes or something (I hit it with my torn off arm, and I'm absolutely sure that is what gave me another minute of fighting time!). Anyhoo.... this book reads like those quizzes only it is more extensive and in a story format.

I know the question... did I survive? Um... well, let...more

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Jan 07, 2011 Peep (Pop! Pop!) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: insane, read-in-2011, liked, zzzzzzzombies, adult-cravings, addicted-to-ya

Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books from when you were a kid? Yeah, I don't either. I was like 1 years old when they came out. *snorts* (yeah right). If I had to guess at what they were, again - I was probably too young to know what they were, I'd say they were books where you starred as the main character and you got to choose what you could do next. Your outcome could either be good or bad, based upon your decisions.

When I first started this one, I didn't realize it was a CYO...more Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books from when you were a kid? Yeah, I don't either. I was like 1 years old when they came out. *snorts* (yeah right). If I had to guess at what they were, again - I was probably too young to know what they were, I'd say they were books where you starred as the main character and you got to choose what you could do next. Your outcome could either be good or bad, based upon your decisions.

When I first started this one, I didn't realize it was a CYOA book. I was surprised that they gave me a choice. Actually, I was quite happy! I got to test drive my zombie survival skills!! Yes! You'll be happy to know that I (if it follows the path I took in the book) will survive. I will survive! At first, I had my husband help me make decisions. Then, after a while (and like any good zombie movie), I started to question his decisions (really, traffic is gridlocked so he thought it would be a good idea to get a car, just in case. In case of what???? It's GRIDLOCKED TRAFFIC!!) and eventually I went on my own way.

I met up with someone and he was actually pretty cool. I'm glad that I decided to do the ridiculous. We fought a few zombies but eventually we were able to keep them out long enough for me to take a nap - which is something everyone needs in between zombie fights. After my nap we had a mini showdown and needless to say I made the best decisions because I survived. Well, me and my buddy! We were rescued.

After that I got to thinking. I didn't want to survive. I wanted to be the stupid person in the movie that makes the dumb decisions. I wanted to be the dumb person that mocked someones fears only to get attacked while laughing at them. I wanted to trip while I was running away from a zombie! So I adopted a plan I tagged, "Think Like a Dummy and Get Devoured by Zombies in easy steps". You know what? It was harder than I thought! I kept trying and trying but mostly I just prolonged pain. I really did pay for my dumb mistakes but not as fast as I thought I would. See? I should show my husband this as proof of how impossible it is for me to make stupid decisions.

So all in all a quick fun read... with zombies! Very nice twist on CYOA books. I like the way it started out and how everything was introduced. The only thing I didn't care for was that in the story I am a he and some of the decisions I had no control over. Oh goodness, does that sound like I'm nagging and that I want to control everything?? Noooooo! Oh well, better than a zombie apocalypse I'd say.

And don't you like how the cover even pays homage to the CYOA books?(less)

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Jan 19, 2012 Jonas Selander rated it 1 of 5 stars

Well.. I like these books where you get to decide things yourself. I've got two problems with this book though.

1. The main-character is a complete idiot and makes choices (that aren't mine) that seems taken from a really bad horror movie. One of those movies that got such a bad story they have to flash boobies and brutal violence every other second not to bore their audience.

2. Other books I read in this genre made you choose a lot more, like several times per page. In this book you get to choo...more

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May 15, 2011 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: funny, zombies

Remember those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that used to be popular for kids? Here's an adult--a very adult--version. You start out as a 20-something male working in a boring Manhattan office job when the zombie plague breaks out. What happens after that is up to you. With 100 different paths to 50 endings, there's plenty of variety. You could find yourself killing a Nazi, beheading zombie strippers, flying to safety in a NY Yankee's private jet, riding with Hell's Angels, being saved by a...more

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Feb 05, 2011 Cheryl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? is a zombie fest, good time! I have not had this much fun reading a book in a very, long time. I can remember sitting in the library reading these adventure books trying to predict the best choice. Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? brings back wonderful memories.

You start out as the hero but be warned as every step you make could be your last. You must decide if you want to be the hero and help people or say screw it and watch your own back. Either ch...more

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Mar 01, 2011 Terry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: gaming, zombies, gamebook

Quick! The zombies are getting close! Do you try to reload the rifle or pick up the morning star? Hop in a taxi or run for the subway? Duck into Nintendo’s Comic Con booth or hope the Lucasfilm hallway leads to an exit? These are the choices you must make in Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?, a gamebook by Max Brallier, a game writer for Poptropica.com.

The main character is a male 25-year-old New Yorker with a crappy apartment, a crappy job and – frankly – a crappy life. In many ways a zomb...more Quick! The zombies are getting close! Do you try to reload the rifle or pick up the morning star? Hop in a taxi or run for the subway? Duck into Nintendo’s Comic Con booth or hope the Lucasfilm hallway leads to an exit? These are the choices you must make in Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?, a gamebook by Max Brallier, a game writer for Poptropica.com.

The main character is a male 25-year-old New Yorker with a crappy apartment, a crappy job and – frankly – a crappy life. In many ways a zombie apocalypse would be a step up, so when a morning meeting is interrupted with news of a cannibalistic attack on nearby hospital workers his (and your) mind starts working.

Like a Choose Your Own Adventure, flavor text describing your situation precedes two or three choices: do you stay hidden under the platform or make a run for it? You turn to the page number indicated by your choice and keep reading. Where this book differs is that the text is usually several pages instead of a paragraph or two, leading to the feeling that when you’ve reached one of the game’s endings you’ve just read a pretty cool zombie novella.

In all, there are 74 “An End”s spread throughout the book’s 400 pages, with one “The End” providing the definitive conclusion. In my playthroughs, I never found an instant-kill scenario and was never trapped in one of those loops some gamebooks have.

While Brallier includes the requisite amount of gore needed to properly tell a zombie story, the various paths edge between horror and black humor – providing an interesting amount of variation especially in terms of the other survivors you meet. That, with the varied locales, will have you holding your place in the book because maybe you didn’t decided to take the bridge out of town after all.

Ebook note: I read/played this on my Kindle and was amazed at how well it worked. Instead of flipping to page numbers, the choices are smart-linked and the bookmark function let me jump back to explore alternate paths.
(less)

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Mar 21, 2012 Deirdre rated it 3 of 5 stars

Reading a book I felt the need to "win" was a very strange experience. I read some choose-your-own-adventure books as a kid, and I thought the idea of a choose-your-own-adventure book for adults was pretty funny. This book was funny in some ways, although I found myself a little bored by the writing and the other characters (all the characters who aren't "you," basically--and reading a story in the second-person is so odd). Even though the characters change depending on which decisions you make,...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

Max Brallier actually made a 'choose your own adventure' book interesting and fun. I can only remember reading one other book of this type years ago and got annoyed enough to quit it after getting 'killed' several times. Brallier makes the story interesting and far more than just a different take on zombie novels. The great thing is how different choices will lead to a very different sort of feel. Why some choices are straight horror and action, others are quite humorous. I don't want to give an...more

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Feb 01, 2011 Chrissy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-review-books, 100-book-challnge-2011

This is a really neat book but not one for young readers it does have adult wording and content. When you start reading this book you are the character in the book and you have to choose what you will do next... When you decided what you want to do next it tells you to flip to a certain page and then your off and running again. Definitely an action pact novel all the way to the end.

This book was read and finished many times with it ending up with me dying more times then I survived. I guess I wo...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: zombies

I had the distinct priviledge to read this book because the author, Max Brallier. posted a message on one of my group boards stating that while supplies last he was giving away autographed copies of this book as long as we are willing to review it on amazon. Needless to say I jumped on this and am now the proud owner of this book autographed but Mr Brallier himself.

When I was a kid I loved the old choose your own adventure novels and I have missed them since. This is a return to that type of no...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Cyna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse is a zombie Choose Your Own Adventure book for adults.

...

Let me say that again.

A ZOMBIE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE BOOK FOR ADULTS. Do I even need to say any more? If you're even casually interested in zombies, this should have you squeeing like a fourteen-year-old girl. My only question is ~~why someone has not thought of this before~~, because this is the BEST IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. Scratch that, apparently this has been thought of before, and those bo...more

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Nov 27, 2011 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads

Original and insanely fun, Max Brallier’s Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? is an adult choose-your-own-adventure style romp through an infection-ravaged Manhattan. Everything starts off at a typical corporate Monday morning meeting, but where it all ends is up to the reader. Do you leave town? Hole up in your apartment? Run home to Mommy? The author covers all the options in one brilliantly demented scenario after another, blending horror conventions with pop culture nods in a way guarante...more

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Jan 28, 2013 Czarina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: guilty-pleasures, the-end-is-near, adult, 5-starred-awesomeness

An interactive zombie apocalypse book. How cool is that? It doesn't get any more nerdier than that! It took me two tries just to survive the zombie apocalypse. I know, I know, what a noob. That only means one thing, I have to stack up more on the zombie reading and movie-watching, you know, just in case. Just in case...

My first attempt, I found a warehouse full of zombie cosplayers and pretended to be a zombie to get to Staten Island. That failed miserably, so I had to swim to the Statue of Libe...more

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Feb 10, 2011 Nely rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: for-review, own

This was awesome! Although, I must confess that I am just way too neurotic for this type of book. Well if you're anything like me I'm sure you've always wondered whether or not you'd survive a zombie apocalypse. I know I have and I've always come to the same conclusion... NO! I'm too clumsy, too OCD and way too neurotic to survive. I admit it (bows head in shame). Well, this is the book that may just help you come to terms with whether or not you'd survive or become a brain muncher like most eve...more

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May 29, 2011 Becky rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Zombie lovers

Shelves: horror, humorous, owned, shortstories-collections, 2011, apocalyptic-types, reviewed, zombies, blog_etb, challenge-1010, signed-by-author

Before we start, a big thank you Max Brallier for sending me a signed copy of this book to review.

That out of the way, I can sum up this review in 5 words: "Yes, it is that awesome."

I love zombies, so when I saw 1) that such a thing as a zombie choose-your-adventure book existed, and 2) that I could get a signed copy to review, I jumped ALL over that! And I'm thrilled that I did. This book is fantastic, cover to cover. Speaking of the cover, it is great. I love the vintage look it has, as if i...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Lexie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: genre-zombies, genre-horror, books-owned, book-type-tradepaperback, review-blog

If you're going to stick the word 'Zombie' into a title, and then leave it up to the (let's face it, confused and unfortunate) masses to save themselves, don't make the endings wimptastic.

The basic endings breakdown in this:
30 Bad Ends: meaning you either die or become a zombie
10 Good Ends: You somehow manage to live relatively content
8 Questionable Ends: You survive, possibly, but the future looks bad
1 The End: The 'True' ending to the book

This book is gruesome, a little horrifying and almost...more If you're going to stick the word 'Zombie' into a title, and then leave it up to the (let's face it, confused and unfortunate) masses to save themselves, don't make the endings wimptastic.

The basic endings breakdown in this:
30 Bad Ends: meaning you either die or become a zombie
10 Good Ends: You somehow manage to live relatively content
8 Questionable Ends: You survive, possibly, but the future looks bad
1 The End: The 'True' ending to the book

This book is gruesome, a little horrifying and almost stomach turning. But if you're reading this to begin with I'm assuming you're not looking for gilded flowery writing. Brallier writes tongue-in-cheek. A few of the questionable endings are him berating you for making the 'stupid' choice (leaving the kids to die, telling the hottest girl ever to go away) to save yourself. Personally I think it would make more sense not to trust a situation you have no control over. My sister and I were discussing some of the decisions and consequences Brallier has in his book and were doubted the wisdom more often than not.

Interesting things can occur--you have a chance to join the Hell's Angels New York Chapter at one point in fact, but its very easy to let these things suddenly distract you. There is only one path to take to reach the 'true' ending and navigating the treacherous waters of the choices isn't as easy as it may sound. It took me twenty tries to finally nail down how to puzzle out the path to the end, though it was worth it. If you are serious about finding it I suggest taking notes. Make a note for each decision you make and the choice you could have made.

Sounds like a lot of work, but heck those old Choose Your Own Adventure novels were a lot of work too!

Inside jokes abound, especially when our lead character runs into a crowd dressed for the 'Undead Walk'. Their bad luck that their Zombie Walk was pre-empted by the undead. There's several arguments about this or that zombie mythos versus each other. Standard trivia things, but still amusing for a Zombie Enthusiast.

Is this a book for everyone? Heck no. Those with weak stomachs when watching horror films should never touch this book. Kids under the age of 14 should not touch this book. This does seem like something that would be a fun party game or dinner discussion--pop out the book and then discuss with friends and loved ones whether preemptively killing your friend is a wise choice or will ultimately lead to your death. (less)

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May 17, 2012 PFS rated it 3 of 5 stars

While not personally a fan of “runners”, Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?
is well written for the genre and an exciting page turner. There are some super wacky plot twists as well as ridiculous [legal edit] characters but it had me cracking up at times. Conversely, it’s extremely gruesome at points and literally gave me nightmares. Twice.

I loved the more sophisticated CYOA vibe, it’s definitely a different animal than what I was familiar with in my youth. My only complaint? I’m on my si...more

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Jan 31, 2011 Brenda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Why I read it: Received review copy
The Plot: Inside these pages lies unspeakable horror. Bloodsplattering, brain-impaling, flesh-devouring horror. You’ve probably read your fair share of zombie stories. But this time it’s different. No longer can you sit idle as a bunch of fools make all the wrong moves. All hell is about to break loose—and YOU have a say in humanity’s survival. (This book is in the classic "Choose your own adventure" style, which was very fun!)
The Characters: There really are n...more

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About Max Brallier

Hey all – I’m Max – author, videogame designer/scripter, and all around pretty cool dude. During the daylight hours, I work in the Ad/Promo department at St. Martin’s Press.

I’m the author of Reasons to Smoke, Reasons to Drink, The All-Star Bathroom Sampler, and Toilet Trivia (to clarify, Toilet Trivia is NOT trivia ABOUT toilets – it’s trivia and fun stuff to read ON the toilet. Although a book of...more

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