Zone One in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

May 04, 2020 Jessica Haider rated it really liked it

Shelves: bipoc-author, fiction, afrofuturism, its-the-end-of-the-world, new-york-i-love-you

A pandemic has put most humans into a zombie-like state. The survivors are trying to reclaim territory and rebuild civilization. Our protagonist (nicknamed "Mark Spitz") is a survivor who works on a team that is helping clear on the designated "Zone One" in Manhattan. They go into buildings and remove any malfunctioning stragglers...aka those infected who are in some sort of GroundHog day mode, repeating the minutiae of their former lives. The novel is set over the course of 3 days with some fla ...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Mia rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2011-books

Very disappointing. I was hoping for an exciting post-apocalyptic tale and instead got this meandering, unfocused and kinda dull reflection of modern day life.

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Sep 12, 2016 Nadine in NY Jones rated it really liked it

Shelves: zombies, nyc, wouldnt-normally-read, dystopian-and-post-apocalyptic, literary-schmiterary

This is what he had learned: If you weren't concentrating on how to survive the next five minutes, you wouldn't survive them.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

This story is the exact opposite of linear. If you can picture the story as a long piece of string, Whitehead smooshed the string into a snarled pile, snipped it in a few places, and then smooshed it together again. I confess I skimmed a few times, because jesuschrist could we get back to the story?? (I also confess that I had to look up "an

This is what he had learned: If you weren't concentrating on how to survive the next five minutes, you wouldn't survive them.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

This story is the exact opposite of linear. If you can picture the story as a long piece of string, Whitehead smooshed the string into a snarled pile, snipped it in a few places, and then smooshed it together again. I confess I skimmed a few times, because jesuschrist could we get back to the story?? (I also confess that I had to look up "anodyne" - he uses it several times, and that is just one of the words I can never remember. I have trouble with "solipsism" too ... but that's not important right now. Other than that one word, I didn't find this particularly difficult to read, just dense.)

I guess Whitehead is less interested in talking about the world infested with zombies, and more interested in describing how completely fucked up the survivors would be. Our Mark Spitz (so nicknamed because (view spoiler) {it's not really a spoiler, I just tagged it in case someone wants to wait until page 147 to find out, which seemed pointless to me to be coy about it, but that was Whitehead's choice to write it like that}), our Mark Spitz is living within his own skull, he's barely registering the things going on around him. He is not present in the present.

He had been here before and not been here before. ... He had been here in other lives that were now pushing into this one. He pressed his forehead against the glass and gazed down upon himself: a five year old lump of boy-matter; the slovenly tangle of him at sixteen; some vague creature attending his parents' thirtieth ... He felt like a little kid who'd split for the restroom and then forgot where his parents were sitting. .. An elemental horror roiled in his skull and he swiveled his head, sweeping his light across the darkness and dust. Search as he might, this time he was not going to find them.

He was a ghost. A straggler.

It's unclear how many years have passed since the zombie uprising, but it seems like quite a few. I liked the ambiguity. And I like how our first hint of doom is as subtle as the quiet footfall of an approaching zombie, sans cliche moan. Just as I was lulled into thinking nothing was ever going to happen. What was that? Oh, probably nothing.. And then, nothing. For a long time, nothing.

I like that we're never told why the national government has moved to Buffalo, NY (BUFFALO?? Buffalo is so boring! I like it!) - I read another zombie book in which the zombies go dormant in the snow, so maybe that's the appeal. I was amused at how much Mark Spitz (and, one assumes, Colson Whitehead) absolutely loathes Connecticut, no reason ever given. I was highly annoyed that we had to wait until page one hundred forty fucking seven until we find out why he's nicknamed Mark Spitz - there was no reason to withhold that information. But I guess Whitehead thought there was no reason to give it either. Or he's just giving us a better taste of the vague rootlessness that seems to afflict everyone in his maybe-brave new world. No one knows why that's your name, no one cares, just shoot the next zombie for me would you? and do you have a spare juicebox I can drink?

This is the world we might have at the end of World War Z: when the zombies have been contained, but not yet eliminated; when the world is in tatters and a government is reforming; when our loved ones are dead; when all the survivors are shell shocked beyond the capacity for rational thought. This is what we would have left. Maybe.

Although I enjoyed this reading experience, I'm not sure if I'll pick up another book by Whitehead. There are too many tangents in the narrative, too many extra details that I didn't need; it smacks of hubris for the author to think we all need to wade through this mental spew. I like a sparer text. YMMV, of course. ...more

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May 23, 2018 Katie rated it really liked it

A smart, dystopian zombie read by a super-talented writer who maybe relied a bit much on his thesaurus (particularly when it came to Connecticut).

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Mar 20, 2016 Nicole Adrienne rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, audiobooks, horror, read-in-2016, post-apocalyptic

Man this guy can write. However... I think I need plot driven vs character driven when it comes to a zombie novel. I'm looking forward to The Underground Railroad. I think his writing style might go better with that subject matter. ...more

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