Liked it. Had a few moments where I thought it was a little all over the place but it did keep me completely involved in a zombie story in a way I never had before. ( )

If you had told me that zombies could be sympathetic characters, I wouldn't have believed you. But Browne manages that beautifully. This book was funny, thoughtful, and all together just fun. I've never liked man-eating undead monsters more. ( )

Didn't do it for me. I gave up.

I thought I just no longer had it in me to read light, unsophisticated fare -- but then I tore through half of [b:Fistful of Feet|6973833|Fistful of Feet|Jordan Krall|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349088596s/6973833.jpg|7213935] in one sitting.

No, Breathers just has that lackluster passive-male first-person narrative voice that I've across so much recently (Busy Monsters? Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England? Ready Player One? I've lost track of the others) and that just bores the hell out of me. I ditched on [b:Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children|9460487|Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, #1)|Ransom Riggs|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1391229642s/9460487.jpg|14345371] for similar reasons (though largely because I hadn't realized it was a children's book when I started).

I suppose I should be chucking an extra star at the book for how fully-realized the author's world is, but that's part of the problem: I felt like the author was describing the scenario to me as the ideas came to him. And really, any book I put down shouldn't get more than a star. Though, to be fair, a novel I won't finish is quite a feat, so maybe there's an award of sorts in there somewhere. ( )

Un premier tome un peu moyen mais qui est suivi par un second plus réussi où il sera question d’un Père-Noël inquiétant. Humour noir et cynique ( )

Breathers is possibly the funniest book I've read to date. The way S. G. Browne times his jokes make the read marvelous. It leaves me wondering why I put it off for so long. It's not difficult to see the comparison to any civil rights movement - the narrator even brings it up himself. What makes this book great is that it's not your typical zombie book. The world isn't at the brink of apocalypse or even the dawn of the post-apocalyptic era. Zombies haven't overpowered humans. In fact, they've been around for centuries and kept in the shadows. Not until recent decades has their presence been acknowledged. And they're even treated the way people treated African-Americans and homosexuals - with fear and ignorance.

The whole zombie civil rights idea aside, the book also judges the humanity of, well, humanity. By shining the light on innocence of children - "Is that true? Are zombies really human?" - to the shear hate of adulthood - "Go back to the grave!" - we're given insight on how outside forces mold our views on what is right and wrong, acceptable and what should be abhorred. It stay true with the Romero-philosophy, the sense that zombies should only bring to realization the way we handle social issues - war, racism, materialism, xenophobia, civil rights, etc.

But Breathers also brings another aspect of the zombie evolution. The creatures aren't mindless. They are exact reflections of the people they once were. And the vampiric rejuvenation is a nice edition to the zombie mythos.

It's the zombie book that will become canon, if not already. ( )