Dearly, Departed

Dearly, Departed was kindly provided to me by Netgalley for Random House Publishing Group.

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Storyline
Dearly, Departed was quite enjoyable for me … at first. I found myself overwhelmed by the storyline because it had entirely way too much going on. I picked this up solely because it was a zombie novel (gotta love zombies) but then I was thrown into this odd dystopian society and THEN it transformed into this weird steampunk society where everything is set in ‘Victorian’ times. That was all just a bit too much for me and made it quite unbelievable and entirely too hard to follow. Suffice it to say I’m going to skip my typical summarizing of the story because it’s simply entirely way too much to summarize.

The Characters
I found each and every one of them to be an enjoyable addition to the story, but the multiple change in point of view added to the ‘entirely-too-hard-to-follow-ness’ that was going on for me. I thought it was an interesting touch when one of the POV’s was even the ‘villain’, but it didn’t work for me overall.
Bram was my favorite… he was charming, interesting, and quite funny. You could almost forget that he was a zombie.

’I gave her as long as she needed, all the while mentally designing my tombstone. R.I.P., Captain Abraham R. Griswold. He was completely useless and made girls cry.’

I think that was a part of the problem though… I didn’t want to forget he was a zombie! Zombies aren’t supposed to be mistaken for humans! I think I was missing the overall zombie-ness about him.

The Zombie’s
The zombie’s in ‘Dearly, Departed’ were an odd bunch. They were all infected with what is known as the Lazarus syndrome which caused people to come alive a few short hours after being pronounced dead… but they didn’t all come back the same. We had the Gray’s who are your typically moaning, limb dragging zombie-types. Then there’s a zombie army that fights the Gray’s. The members of the zombie army are zombies but they stayed fairly human, as far as personalities go… they still looked just as gruesome as normal zombies.

’I desperately wanted to roll my eyes, but we were discouraged from doing so. The muscles around the eyes are always some of the first to go.’

Overall Thoughts
Well shucks. I was so hoping to like this more but unfortunately this really didn’t work for me. ( )

I got this out after reading Habel's Big Idea post on John Scalzi's blog, because something about the post pricked my fancy. But I was still a bit dubious because zombies and steampunk are both in the category of things I would like to enjoy but often don't. However, Habel proved that done right, both of these are fun! In fact, this threw in a hint of dystopia and a romance, and I still thought it was awesome. I wanted to write a whole post about it, because there are many things I could Say, but it's a bit late now. So I'll just say that if the idea of a slow romance, a society called New Victoria, mad scientists, and a bunch of zombies sounds at all appealing, you should read this book. It's not perfect, but it's a lot of fun. (Dec 2011) ( )

I'm not a big zombie fan but really liked this book and felt it had a good sense of place with great details. I do think it should have been limited to 3 POV and had an issue with the ending but will be reading the next book. ( )

From the beginning, Dearly, Departed was a fascinating read. There is just so much going on in here, most of which I approve of. For example, this book, the start of a new series, manages to be both set in a future society and steampunk, which is, traditionally, historical in nature. So, while not technically steampunk, it reads that way entirely. Given that and the zombies, I bet Cherie Priest loved this book (or will love it...I have no idea if she's read it or not).

Above that, Dearly, Departed is also a dystopia, or at least has enough dystopian elements to keep me happy, er, unhappy. Actually, it has pretty much every kind of dystopia possible. Habel explains that the society in which Nora lives came about in reaction to a series of calamities that befell the human race in entirety (and Americans especially) 150 years previously. These include an ice age (didn't see that one coming), catastrophic storms taking out island countries, disease, famine, nuclear war, and the explosion of the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone. While I do think it's awesome that Habel included that stuff, I also feel like it may just be, focus on the pun, overkill.

That's one of my two concerns about the book: Habel seems to have tried to do a bit too much. While this didn't distract from my enjoyment of the novel too much, I did sometimes shake my head in response to the sheer number of crazy things, some of which were markedly unnecessary.

My other concern, in case you were curious, is zombies being hot. That's right, folks. Now, all paranormals are hot, even zombies. Of course, I have seen zombies that had relationships before, but they only dated other zombies (Breathers); this is my first run in with a couple composed of one living person and one dead person. That said, I really do like Bram, and, all things considered, this has been done as well as is possible. However, I cannot ship this or think it will end in anything but tears and/or nomming.

What I really loved about the book were the strong female heroines, Nora and Pamela. They are vibrant and really rise to difficult occasions. Despite being raised to be proper New Victorian girls (think Victorian social mores and customs), they refuse to be put into a box or onto a pedestal. Their chapters are definitely the best ones; I think I would have liked the book even more had it been told exclusively from their perspectives and could definitely have done without Wolfe's and Victor's sections (the POV switches). Examples of how cool these girls are: one of them climbed up rose bushes with bare hands while also firing at zombie attackers and the other killed a zombie with a parasol. Yeah, with a parasol.

To sum up, who doesn't want to read a good zombie novel where the living dead get taken out by a deadly parasol?

P.S. Is anyone else tired of every single paranormal book having a cheesy tag line on the front, such as this one "Love can never die." That's so melodramatic...and I'm pretty sure I've seen virtually the same thing on at least ten other books. ( )

Absolutely loved this book. It was everything I'd hoped [b:Zombies Don't Cry|9780099|Zombies Don't Cry (A Living Dead Love Story)|Rusty Fischer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327885080s/9780099.jpg|14669852] would be (but ultimately wasn't). Our main female protagonist is kickass (actually, ALL of our female protagonists are pretty kickass in this book), the book takes place in an alternate, steampunkish future, and best of all, there was nary a love triangle in sight. (I feel like I need to develop a shelf for this. Gold star for Lia Habel!)

My only complaint was that the constantly-switching first person POV was kind of a pain in the neck to read, but the plot was engaging so I was able to overlook it after awhile. The sense of humor in this book worked really well, and the relationship between Nora and her zombie beau was very sweet and surprisingly believable. ( )