The Peculiar Superpowers of Eleanor Armstrong by K. A. Schloegel
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Published: 2009
Publisher: BookSurge Publishing
Genre: Zombies, YA
Paperback: 324 pages
Rating: 5
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fyi: ebook is currently available for $2.99
Teenage writer Eleanor Armstrong tells the story of her life as a collection of Facebook-esque entries interspersed with the chapters of the novel she is writing. She starts out writing a nice, quiet high school romance, depicting the love triangle between ultra-hip and smart Sarah – who is really just Eleanor with great hair, her geeky pal Marky – who is Eleanor’s pal in real life too, and popular jock Brandon – a character based on a boy who once spoke to Eleanor.
But to her dismay, the novel turns to horror after zombies attack the school and kill Brandon. You know, just the usual “Boy meets girl. Boy turns into zombie. Zombie-boy loses girl. Zombie-boy gets girl.”
Huh?
Write what you know, Eleanor’s teacher tells her. And what she knows is a high school teeming with bored kids who will prey upon each other, can be kind, cruel, fall in love, or anything in between just to relieve the tedium of their existence.
In other words, a school full of zombies. So Eleanor goes with it. Zombie attacks abound, both in her novel and her real life as an overlooked teenager with peculiar superpowers.
Amusing quote:
I splashed the Mountain Dew in Marky's face.
It didn't stop him.
It didn't distract him.
He didn't seem to notice it at all.
Perhaps zombies are immune to flat Mountain Dew.
- location 607, chapter 5
My two-bits:
In-a-word(s): ice scraper
Awesome coming of age story with zombies thrown in... eeek!
I really enjoyed the style of writing in this book which includes two parallel story lines that portray the different perspectives of the characters.
The whole story is presented with blog entries with its comments and a fictional piece that the main character is writing. Yup, fiction within fiction. Cool, huh?
* review copy courtesy of author
* read KA's guest post for September Zombies which include characters from this book
* part of September Zombies event
