Lissie asked Isaac Marion:

Are R and Julie based off Romeo and Juliet. Will you be bringing any other Shakespearean themes/motifs to your next book(s)?

Isaac Marion There is a Shakespeare motif running through Warm Bodies, although it's meant to be more of a winking allusion and definitely not a "zombie remake" of Romeo and Juliet.

I actually didn't set out to reference Shakespeare in the beginning. I noticed the parallels halfway through the writing process and found it fascinating that there are themes so deeply ingrained in the human consciousness that they keep popping up throughout history, by design or by accident. Romeo and Juliet itself is a remake of a remake of a remake, going all the way back to ancient times with Ovid's "Pyramus and Thisbe." There are timeless ideas in there--love thriving against safety and reason, the suffocating narrowness of our labeled identities, the power of youthful imprudence to disrupt the social order--and I love that they're strong enough to find their way into my post-apocalyptic zombie story without me even realizing it.

Once I did realize it, I decided to run with it, so I named the characters accordingly and scattered cute little references throughout. Although despite the reference, R's name is in fact NOT Romeo...

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