Review: Kiss of Life - Daniel Waters

When Phoebe's best friend Adam takes a bullet for her, it proves everyone right - Adam is in love with her.  And now that he's come back to life, Phoebe's more important than ever.  A zombie can come back from death faster if they're loved - and kissed... which means Phoebe has to say goodbye to Tommy Williams, the other zombie in her life.

While coaxing Adam back to reality and fending off Tommy's advances, Phoebe tries to carry on as normal.  But what's normal when teenageers are rising from the dead and scores of others want nothing more than to send them back to their graves?  And does having a zombie boyfriend make Phoebe a target too?

Generation Dead Series:
Generation Dead
The Kiss of Life
Passing Strange (July 2010)

For more information visit the Daniel Waters' Blog

Review:
It is impossible to review Kiss of Life without giving away at least one major spoiler for Generation Dead so if you're new to this series I'd really recommend you don't read any further.  Click here if you'd like to read my review for Generation Dead instead.

Kiss of Life continues the story not long after the end of Generation Dead, Adam died trying to save Phoebe's life and has now come back as a zombie but he is struggling to regain his speech and movement.  His killer is facing trial but as there are no laws protecting zombies or giving them any rights things are very complicated.  The defense are going to argue that it couldn't be murder when the victim can walk into court as a witness and it looks like the Adam's killer could literally get away with murder.  But that isn't the only thing Phoebe and her friends have to worry about.  The prejudice against the zombies is getting worse - with the help of an unknown group who are stirring trouble - and things are going to get even more complicated than they were before.

I had mixed feelings about Generation Dead and I had a similar experience with Kiss of Life.  It was interesting to have some of the story told from Adam's perspective but that did make for frustrating reading, particularly at the beginning when he is really struggling with his speach and his thoughts are very disjointed.  Adam was by far my favorite character in the first book so I wasn't happy about the change in him but I'm glad to say this does improve by the end.  I also found that this gave Colette and Margi a chance to shine and their humor added a lighter note that I enjoyed.

The themes of discrimination and prejudice are continued and again handled very realistically by Daniel Waters.  I really like this side to the series and think we can all learn something by reading it.  I'm very curious to see how this will be handled in Passing Strange which I believe is the last book in the series.  We see less of Tommy in this story which I didn't mind - he was never my favorite character anyway and I didn't have the same icky feeling about Adam & Phoebe that I did when she was dating Tommy.  I think this was because they already had a strong relationship before his death so it didn't come across as quite so creepy.

As much as I liked the above points I did find that I struggled to get into the story.  The first half of the book in particular was very slow with not much happening and I found myself wanting to give up.  I'm glad that I persisted though as the action levels do pick up and it has left me wanting to read Passing Strange so I can find out how the series ends.

Source: Thanks to Simon & Schuster for sending me this review copy

Other Reviews:
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