Review: Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter (White Rabbit Chronicles #1)

Sorry about the mini hiatus guys! I was a little too busy last week, had to prepare for a debate, and had to stay at school till very late to finish everything. We had only 5 days to prepare! Anyway, our team won, which was a good thing, my schedule was interrupted, which was bad :P Okay, let's go to the review now.

Title: Alice in Zombieland (White Rabbit Chronicles #1)

Author: Gena Showalter

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal(Zombie), Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Synopsis/Summary: She won’t rest until she’s sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever.

Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that’s all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.

Her father was right. The monsters are real….

To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies….

I wish I could go back and do a thousand things differently.
I'd tell my sister no.
I'd never beg my mother to talk to my dad.
I'd zip my lips and swallow those hateful words.
Or, barring all of that, I'd hug my sister, my mom and my dad one last time.
I'd tell them I love them.
I wish... Yeah, I wish.-Taken from GoodReads

From the book on: Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / The Book Depository

       I really think this book is good, very good, and wanted so very much to give it 5 stars, but once I've calmed down and survey the whole situation, I found that this book had some flaws, and that's why I had to give it only 4.5 stars :( (Actually, that was pretty close to 5, whatever :P)

      I like the opening, very ominous, with Alice's note and such, I was immediately piqued to what Alice was talking about, what happened that made her regret things so deeply. The car accident was timed well, starting the book with a BANG (no pun intended). I really liked it :)

     The book had several climaxes, I would say about 3 to 4, and most of the fighting scenes were in there. I was cool with that, it kept the book from those awkward middle phases where everything was still in the same place for chapters, and the readers were tempted to leave the book and start another one (I knew I did, I actually still hadn't finish Fallen, I planned on reviewing that :P) But, the multiple climaxes kind of took the excitement from the one main climax near the end of the book, the one that really matters. It's just that the previous semi-climaxes were so great, I felt that that one was a little rushed, the whole fighting scene just span around 10 pages, whereas others had about the same or more. If it was gonna be in the spotlight, you've got to give it more juice, make it special, alas, that was my only complain about the book.

    I seriously LOVE the romance of this book! Cole and Alice were so good together. Although there was a little bit of a insta-love, I still loved it! Plus, they didn't let things go from there just because they were apple to their eyes in the first sight, they got to know each other as sort of friends, though of course they actually would date, so don't worry, the romance is still the romance ;)

    One more thing to praise, I really liked Showalter's writing style. This is my first Showalter book and it left a pretty good impression. She didn't write very lyrically, like Laini Taylor, but more laid back and urban (sorry, couldn't think of other words, please re-frame from saying that I am actually 60 years old, because I am genuinely 14.5 ;P ). It was easy to read, and made me get into the book really fast, whereas I had to reset my channels when I read Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Both were great though :)

     The zombies in this book was really different from what you had seen before. This wasn't some Hollywood block buster, where tons of fake blood and makeup were used, and the zombies were actually evil spirits. They needed to be defeated differently than hand to hand combat, and the setting was really cool. Although I actually knew that the zombies were different before I even read the book (some reviews I've read), I liked it even more when I actually read it. It just had this epic feel to it, good vs. evil, I love it!

    Um, can I say the characters of this book were really all super awesome? Hell yes! Everyone was really well-written, and the characterization was definitely there, I could see it in every character that Showalter created for this book.

    Alice Bell was our main protagonist, and I love her. She somehow always had a snarky comeback for things, although when I read the book I pictured her as kind of meek, goes to show that everything is not what it seems. She was a very pleasant main protagonist, not too whiny, even though her parents and her sister died within the first 30 pages. Not too strong, there were times when the female protagonist was too invincible (I am talking about other books), and it just kind of ruined the whole thing :P But strong enough to defend herself (physically) and pull herself together for everyone to see (mentally), I really liked this kind of heroine. Not perfect, but perfect enough ;)

    I love Cole a lot too. True, he was actually a very guy guy, but he really cared a lot about Alice and constantly showed it in his protective nature, and I like that he was very loyal to his friends. I guess that was required though if you were to hunt zombies together :P

    When I read the reviews, I found that many people actually loved Kat a lot. I was okay with her too, and quite strangely, her oversized ego didn't bother me at all. Which just goes to show that Showalter really was great with her characters :)

    And, like I said before, I loved the romance! Alice and Cole would be so cute together, I just knew it! They had so much passion (?) for each other, especially Cole, who seemed madly in love :P I wouldn't go into details but I must say even before they were officially together, there were a lot of steamy scenes which was skirting the line of YA books ;) So expect some drama and some steam if you catch these two together~

    I would give this book 4.5 stars, the 0.5 was actually attributed to the not too impressive climax among semi-climaxes, which showed that less is more. Other than the minor complaint, everything in this book was just peachy! This book featured an exciting storyline with multiple fighting scenes, original world-building and lovable characters! I would recommend this to general YA readers, although it was a paranormal, it was definitely worth your time!One more thing, the cover design of this book was so great, I actually sighed whenever I see the book cover. I liked the model, the frames, the backgrounds, everything. And since I bought the American hardback edition, I could take away the cloth and saw that even the spine of the inside of the book was gorgeous, seriously, the cover alone could actually warrant a 5 star from me ;)

Rating: 4.5 stars!

The zombies were making its comeback! I saw many zombies that was released this few months or next year. So, how do you like your zombies? I know decaying flesh was hardly a lovable trait, but you never knew ;) This book might have some similar traits with Alice in Wonderland, but as you would have read in other reviews, it was not a retelling :P I knew that some people were disappointed at that, but I wasn't, the moment I saw that there was a character called Cole in the book's website, I knew it wasn't a retelling (I don't know how, sixth sense?), so I was prepared :) Anyway, were you disappointed that this wasn't a retelling of Alice in Wonderland? If you've read the book, how do you like it? Does it make up for the fact that it fooled you with its resemblance with the famous tale? Happy reading!