Harrison Geillor

No one in the sleepy town of Lake Woebegotten, Minnesota, knew about the zombies until Gunther Montcrief awoke in the wee hours of the morning needing to relieve himself. He stepped outside, the cold numbing his nose, and quickly took care of business. But a bright flash of a meteor sailing across the sky and exploding into so much dusk froze him in his tracks for a moment until the fading light -- and increasing cold -- told him to return to his little fish shack. Once inside, the commotion show more caused by the walleye in his cooler caught his attention, seeing as how he hooked them while fishing earlier in the day. They should, by all rights, be deceased, and yet there they were, snapping and eating each other inside their insulated prison. Even chopping their heads off and throwing them in the lake didn't stop the activity.

Unbeknownst to Gunther, the same thing was happening all over the world. It took some time for residents of Lake Woebegotten to believe it, thinking that the big cities being shown on TV were simply full of rioters. When they finally did after poor Clem was attacked by Mr. Levit's zombified dog Alta, the townsfolk -- headed by the newly-designated Chief of Police Stevie Ray, Father Edsel and Pastor Daniel Inkfist -- set about shoring up the town in preparation for the zombie apocalypse.

"The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten" does a fine job parodying Garrison Keillor's homespun and humorous style, giving a "quaint" turn to the typical zombie apocalypse. And while it has the requisite zombie attacks, the story brings forth the underbelly of such a sleepy little town with a fantastic cast of characters: Eileen, head of the Lutheran Women's Circle, who just murdered her husband the mayor; Rufus, the recently-returned college student who thinks because he reads about zombies and has mastered "Call of Duty" that he can take charge of a zombie attack; Cyrus Bell, slightly crazy but loaded down with an arsenal of end-of-the-world protection (i.e., guns like you would not believe); and a serial killer. I enjoyed following their antics trying to take control of the town while at the same time keeping the townsfolk safe from any and all zombies. (And I especially like the use of zombie animals.) It's full of humor and definitely a fun read. show less

I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was truly a hilarious spoof of Twilight!! Starting with the names: Bella Swan is now Bonnie Grayduck, Edward Cullen is Edwin Scullen, Jacob Black is Joachim Noir (my favorite!!), and Carlisle Cullen is Argyle Scullen! And that's just the start! This book takes everything you think you know about the original characters and turns it on its ear! Instead of the innocent, Bonnie is the psycho doing the show more pursuing, and Edwin becomes the prey. Every move Bonnie makes is calculated to answer one simple question: How does this help me? How does this help me meet my needs? Bonnie wants to be a vampire and she's not about to let a little thing like Edwin not wanting to turn her (due to living a lonesome existence without a soul, etc.) stop her. In fact, she pretty much already doesn't have a soul, or a conscience, but she keeps that a secret.

From Goodreads: "A small town... a plucky heroin, a shiny vampire, and a hunkey Native American rival with a secret. But all is not as it seems in Lake Woebegotten."

Poor Joachim gets stuck in the middle, as usual! When his family secret comes out, he has to learn how to live as a werebear! Yes, you read it right: A Wear-bear!!! Didn't I say it was hilarious!

The only problem I had, and the reason that I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5, is that Bonnie was just so annoying and unlikable! I know that was the whole point, but not liking the main character makes it kind of hard to totally enjoy a book. Other than that small sticking point, I can completely recommend this book to all spoof lovers out there, and anyone who loves to laugh at Twilight :D show less

I don't remember when I've laughed as loud and as long as I did over the cover copy of The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor. The concept is genius, and the fake blurbs are hysterical. At this point, I should probably admit that I'm not a fan of Prairie Home Companion, zombies, or literary mash-ups, making this book an unlikely choice for me. What can I say? I judged this book by its cover.

And that turned out to be a not-entirely-accurate way to judge the interior contents. As show more I mentioned, the cover copy was laugh-out-loud funny and just a bit stupid. Based on that first impression, I have to say that the book was all-around better-written, better-plotted, and a lot less stupid than I expected. Also, the humor was different. It was funny and satirical, but less "in your face" than I expected.

The plot is easy to summarize. In fact, one character does just that, "The situation is this. The dead have come back to life, and they're dangerous. Just like in some kind of horror movie or video game. When the corpses rise, there's nothing human left in them, as far as I can tell, just a terrible hunger." Lake Woebegotten does not exist in a pop-culture vacuum. Another character has taken a course in "The Zombie as Metaphor." He kept up a running dialog throughout along the lines of, "It seems to me we're dealing with the classic George Romero Night of the Living Dead sort of zombies, just straight-up reanimated corpses hungry for human flesh, probably brought to life by some form of cosmic radiation. You heard about the meteor shower last night, right? Who knows what came flying down from space?"

Oddly enough, this book reminded me a lot of Stephen King's recent doorstop, Under the Dome. Both stories are basically a look at an entire small town full of people coping with a dangerous and otherworldly stressor. The town is made up of individuals with secrets, hidden agendas, and various strengths and weaknesses. It's a perfect setting for drama and (as even Mr. King knows) comedy. As in, "Julie's eyes had a strange light to them, and Otto wondered about her past, who she was, really, where she'd gone when she left town, why she'd come back...." Or, "Eileen hadn't exactly developed a taste for blood, like some kind of tiger that eats one little Javanese boy and can't abide the taste of anything by sweet, sweet manflesh after that, but she'd discovered she could kill both deliberately and in the heat of the moment if the job needed doing."

The novel is structured in three parts, and here's a great example of the pseudonymous author taking a more sophisticated and interesting approach to telling the story. The middle section is entitled, "Twenty-some Odd Scenes from the Winter, in No Particular Order, Certainly Not Chronological." And that, of course, is exactly what it is. But by presenting these short chapters jumbled and out of order, he does a great job of creating narrative tension. It was this section that bumped the book up to 5 stars for me.

The one area that may disappoint is if you're looking for some real scares. I'm widely-acknowledged to be huge scaredy-cat, but not even I had a moment's fright over these zombies. And that's the way I like it. But I laughed a lot, and got a fast, fun story with a perfect ending. My determination to stay far, far away from Minnesota is firmly reinforced. show less

The Good: This book had me rolling on the floor laughing. Seriously. Fans or haters of Twilight will enjoy this book, readers who like creative parodies or spoofs will enjoy this book and readers who like humorous, dark and strange stories will enjoy this book. In fact, even the people who've never read or heard of Twilight would enjoy this book because it's great as a stand alone book. Harrison Geillor takes our main characters from Twilight and while subtly keeping their characteristics show more they are famous for, adds a twist to each of them. Bella is Bonnie, Edward is Edwin, Jacob is Jaoquin and so on and so forth. Geillor creatively navigates through ALL of Meyer's Twilight series and mocks the entire thing. But he's not mocking it in a crude or mean way, he's taking the characters and showing readers what COULD have been the story. For example, in Twilight, Bella is a bit shy, clumsy and the "plain" girl. She wants to fit in, doesn't have much confidence and goes to live with her dad because she wants her mom to be happy. Geillor chooses to swap these characteristic and instead say that Bonnie is shy, clumsy and "plain" because she CHOOSES to be. It's all part of a plan. She is not the innocent, naive girl that Meyers writers her as but rather a more confident, manipulative and crazy teenager. Plainly put she is a sociopath. I LOVED IT! Everything about this book made me laugh because (and this is just MY opinion) but I am not a huge fan of Twilight and I loved seeing someone rework the novel into something that is ten times better than the original book. It was well written, funny, unique and honestly a great story whether or not someone knew it was written about Twilight. I also loved some of the new minor characters that Geillor added in like the "Narrator" and the "Liaison" between the Vamps and the Wolves.

The Bad: Not too much bad to say about this book. I did think the creepiness and darkness of Bonnie's character got a wee bit out of control. I totally understand what Geillor was doing when he started going in that direction and I enjoyed her throughout, but I think her "evil" could have been toned down just a bit. I also thought it was a little longer than it should have been. Could have been cut down just a little.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this book! I would give it a A- Like I said earlier, many different kinds of readers will enjoy this book however, I will say this: If you are a die hard Twilight fan and get upset when people make fun of the books, characters etc and you don't EVER want to see a different version other than the one Stephenie Meyers wrote, then this book is NOT for you. Just a warning!

**I received this book free from the publisher through www.netgalley.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own show less