My book journal #6 – My Undead Mother-in-law by Andy Zach

I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Apart from being called a zombie in the office, because I used to work too long till my eyes turned red and legs felt so tired they often moved like a dead-man-walking, I have never had much proximity to zombies or zombie-hero-stories. I have watched a few movies where zombies were always portrayed as creepy and villainous. So I always associated them with the gory horror films or novels. Having always read only the stereotyped versions of a zombie, Andy Zach’s fun and humorous take on zombies came as a laughter riot to me.

Diane Newby, ‘the undead mother-in-law’ reminded me of many minority rights activists in my country, but unlike them, she is strong- physically and mentally, doesn’t victimize herself but is a true, witty heroine. She became a zombie by accident but instead of looking at it with terror or grief; she learns to enjoy the fun and positive aspects of it: being dead-proof, aging-proof, and disease-proof! She fights against the stigma associated with ‘zombification’ and advocates the use of zombie blood to cure elderly and disabled people. She is not alone in her pursuits but is helped by her husband George, son Don and his wife Maggie (also zombies). Through her son-in-law Ron Yardley’s blog she is introduced to Sam and Lisa Melvin, editors of Midley Beacon, a one-stop online newspaper for zombie news. Through them, she is taken to the battle fronts to fight national catastrophes like zombie turkeys, corgis etc.

Apart from the fun narration of an unlikely-to-ever-happen-story, I also enjoyed some other aspects of this book. One was the clever use of excerpts from Ron Yardley’s blog in the narration. It worked really well for striking home a point or an emotion. I also enjoyed the antagonist and his versatile use of latest technology weapons, whether it is cyborgs, controlling chips or hyperloops. I also loved the references to real life people like Elon Musk, Obamas or Trumps. As a point to improve, I would suggest one more round of editing for this book. Errors are not serious, but in many places I could see spaces missing or unwanted words popping up in otherwise perfect sentences. Also, I would have preferred reading time in the format Hour: Minutes (19:00) instead of say 1900. (I am not sure if this format was used purposefully.)

Overall, this is a fun book to read. I would recommend it to everybody who loves Zombie stories or the genre humour. My rating for the book is 3 out of 5 stars – I liked it 🙂 . Even though it is the second book in the series ‘Life After Life Chronicles’, it is not necessary to read the first book ‘Zombie Turkeys’ to understand the second.

I wish the author good luck with all his works. 🙂 Interested readers can find out more about the author and his books at andyzach.net Happy reading 😉