ABC - The Jackson 5

Z Is for Zombie:
An Illustrated Guide to the End of the World

Author: Adam-Troy Castro
Illustrator: Johnny Atomic
Pages: 64
ARC Acquired From: HarperCollins via NetGalley

I nabbed this title from NetGalley because I enjoy reading about zombies. Much to my surprise (guess who could have done more research!), I discovered that Z Is for Zombie is (as I maybe should have guessed from the title) an alphabet book. Writing an alphabet book of this nature was certainly an...interesting choice. I can't help but wonder how many adults read alphabet books, even ones with clever page long explanations of each letter's word or phrase.

The writing is pretty hilarious. Certainly worth the few minutes it takes to read through the whole book. There is the standard cheating with certain letters (X, you jerk), but it's done pretty well overall. The best heading of all was "O Is for Omigod Omigod Oh Jesus Get It off Me Get It off Me Get It...Aaaarrrrgggh." Yeah! The art that accompanied the amusing anecdotes, however, did not appeal to me. The pictures are gruesome, but that was to be expected. The problem is that most of them looked cheap, as though they didn't take much time or use many graphic design skills to knock out those bad boys.

Conclusion: This could be an excellent gag gift/stocking stuffer/book to read while waiting in line at the Barnes and Noble.