The promotional language for Zom-B calls it “radical,” which is true. It also says that it tackles “thought-provoking moral questions,” which is only half true.

The story centers around “B,” a child in Britain who has a rough-and-tough lifestyle and whose father is a severe racist and also abusive of his family. B is slowly but surely inheriting some of the father’s characteristics and wars with his mental conclusions. Is B a racist too? That’s what B must figure out. Oh, but wait, there’s a zombie apocalypse afoot as well.

The main character asks a lot of questions about the abusive father, and results are not cleanly drawn at all. There’s a lot of going back and forth over whether to agree with daddy’s perspective in B’s mind. So, sure, there are a lot of interesting moral dilemmas at stake here, but do they ever really come to a satisfactory head?

This is a very quick-paced, short-climaxed book. The paperback version handed out at BEA indicates that there’ll be a ton of graphics inserted into the book before it goes to sales print, which will probably aide the book a lot. Otherwise, it seems very hollow and hungry for violence … just like its zombies.

3/5 stars