MY RATING: ★★★★(4.2)
A beautiful re-imagined zombie apocalypse plot centered around childrens’ behavior and what young minds can do. Melanie is a young girl who waits every day for 2 agents to come get her, strap her to a wheelchair, stabilize her head and push her to class. Her teachers taught her about the Hungries, those who feed on people. The minute they can smell human’s flesh, blood, they are triggered and can’t stop. Melanie can understand that but she also wonders why children keep disappearing from the classroom or why each time she tells the sergeants “Good Morning”, they look at her strangely and turn a blind eye to her.
- The science that backs up the plot. Oh my was the plot well thought. Microbiology to psychology. From the point where and how the virus spread to the behaviour component of those special children, everything was spot on. An author who did their research and who’s able to transmit their knowledge is a very good author in my opinion.
“The psychological comfort outweighs the logical objections. Everybody needs a security blanket.”
- The POV’s from different characters. I love the way the author manipulates different POV wihtout any difficulty. She can mimic the mind of a young girl as well as a renowed scientist or even a strict daddy-issues sergeant. The characters have some of the most fascinating personalities ever. It’s fun and amusing to see them interact with each other and how, dictated by the circumstances, they manage themselves to accept the others even if if they are complete opposites.
- All the other books references hiding in this novel. You can see Easter eggs from Tolkien, Narnia, Plato, Greek Mythologies and so much more in here. It’s like everything and every facts I learn from books, someone found a smart way to insert them and transform it into a book.
“She’s lived in Plato’s cave, staring at the shadows on the wall. Now she’s been turned around to face the fire.”
- The predictable ending. I could smell it from miles away and, I don’t know, I always want a big punch in my ending. Although, it did make me cry SOO… Points for that !
- Some moments reminded me the 5th Wave and not in a good way. I find the pace slow whenever they wanted to have some actions, the redundancy of the typical oh-let’s-hideout-from-the-zombies tricks. Maybe because I’m not impressed anymore with all the 5th Wave and World War Z novels.
MY RATING: ★★★
I think they did a pretty good job in recreating the principal plots from the novel but oh was I disappointed in the portrayal of the main characters. You ready for my tirade?
First, in the book Melanie was blonde and Miss Justineau was black and they switched it in the movie. Why am I bothered you say? Because I believe IN THIS SPECIFIC CASE (usually, I wouldn’t give a fuck if they switch the ethnicity or not) if the author has made all the story around it, it’s for a reason. Even the name Melanie was explained at the beginning of the book : its name is derived from the Greek (melania), “blackness” and that from (melas), meaning “dark”. The author wanted us to see behind the irony : in the book Melanie is blonde and blue eyes. The relation between Melanie and Miss Justineau is a really special one. You can feel it in the book that Melanie has an overall idolizing phase over Miss Justineau. Somehow what I find very interesting is the author has built it around so that a little white girl can relate onto a strong black woman and can recognize the motherly example of her. Of course, having read the book, I expected that same bond on screen. But seeing the movie, it was totally different. They rushed the beginning so it didn’t have any space for more building between the characters. The relationship between Miss Justineau and Melanie just felt flat like a forced love: OKAY YOU HAVE EXACTLY 2 MINS TO LOVE ME AND EXPECT ME TO BE YOUR MOTHER! IMMA TOUCH YOUR HEAD AND BOOM! NOW YOU ARE MY DAUGHTER OKAY.
Also, they portrayed Melanie as a bloody creature during all the movie. It was not the same as the book. She is not always covered in blood. In fact, Miss Justineau had found her a very lovely blouse and start to get her changed. The Melanie character was also trying too hard and speaking too fast as if to show she was a know-it all. It was very more modest in the book.
I guess you can see the difference between my opinions for the Book Vs the Movie now LOL
Hope you enjoyed reading this and let me know your thoughts 😉
You purchase your copy @Amazon Canada or @Indigo Chapters here! 😀
And no worries I think only a few people noticed the movie was out for it wasnt covered much in the media LOL -Trang
My Dark Theories 
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