Generation Dead: Book 2 Kiss of Life by Daniel Waters

Release date: May 12, 2009
Publisher: Hyperion Book Children
Format: print (from the library)
Age Group: Young Adults
Pages: 410
Source for Synopsis: jacket cover
Challenge: (personal) 2012 Reading Challenge, 2012 Support Your Library Challenge

The phenomenon that’s been sweeping the country seems to be here to stay. Not only are the teenagers who have come back from their graves still here, but newly deads are being unearthed all the time. While scientists look for answers and politicians take their stands, the undead population of Oakvale has banded together in a group their calling the Sons of Romero, hoping to find solidarity in segregation.

Phoebe Kendall may be alive, but she feels nearly as isolated as her dead friends. Just when she’d reconciled herself to having feelings for a zombie—her homecoming date, Tommy Williams—her friend Adam proves his love by taking a bullet for her. Things get even more confusing when Adam comes back from the grave. Now she has two dead boys in her life—one who saved it, and one who she can’t seem to live without.

There were more quotes that I liked, but I forgot to write them down or mark the page with something until I was done the book, I just skimmed through the book and found some interesting quotes, I might look for more later.

“What did you do with the coffin?”
Karen shrugged. “I wanted to keep it, but my mom thought it was too morbid. She didn’t even want me to have the pillow, but I was…insistent. I think they sold the coffin on eBay.” -Page 243

Lol, who would want to keep a coffin? That would be kind of creepy having one in your house.

“I know what you mean, I went over to Adam’s last night and all we did is watch the news. We never watch television.”
“Oh no? What do you usually do?”
She said it casually, but Phoebe caught the evil glint in her eyes. “We take long walks in the woods. We walked all the way to Oxoboxo Lake the other day.”
“Long walks, huh?”
“Yes, Margi. Long walks. Very long walks.{” She leaned back in her chair. “It’s starting to get really cold, though. It doesn’t bother him, but I can’t stand it when it gets cold and windy. I don’t know what we’re going to do when we can’t walk.”
“You’ll think of something.”
“Margi! Stop it!”
“Whaaaaat?” Feighning innocence, which she couldn’t quiten pull off. “I’m just saying, you’re wery creative, and…”
“Margi! Not another word!”
Margi laughed and put her peach pit on her napkin. -Page 356

Oh Margi, lol. I’m pretty sure I’m right about what I think Margi meant from all this.

Gore: No (at least not that I remember).
Magic: kind of (teenagers coming back from the dead is not normal, so I consider it a bit like magic, even though other people probably don’t.
Romance: Yes

Action: 2.5 stars
Pacing: 3 stars
Plot: 3.5 stars

Phoebe Kendall lives in a world (so far it’s only happening in America in that world) where teenagers rise from the dead and walk among us. Science still hasn’t figured out why some people and why only teens come back. Although, not everyone is happy about the zombies, many people just want to destroy them, just because their different and they think that it’s not right that this happens. It is already an unpleasant and kind of dangerous world for the differently biotic teenagers, but in this book, it becomes much much worse.

At the end of the first novel in this series, which is called Generation Dead, Phoebe was about to be shot and Adam saved her from it, so instead he got shot. Adan didn’t hesitate to giving his life to protect Phoebe and he didn’t expect that he would come back from the dead.

Since Adam’s “resurrection,” Phoebe spends most of her time with him, since she believes that he wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for her, yet she still can’t decide if she loves Tommy or Adam more. She still doesn’t know if Tommy’s feelings for her are real feelings or if he just wants to be with her because she is a living girl.

If you thought that the laws and people weren’t fair to the zombies before, then think again, because their even worse in this book, a lot worse.

This book has three of the same point of views as the first one, only this time we don’t experience Tommy’s POV anymore, instead we get Tak’s.

I read the first book in the series two years ago. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t read this one sooner, that’s because I heard of many interesting books over those years and I got more interested in those, but then a few moths ago, I saw someone rereading the series and reviewing them, which reminded me that I didn’t finish reading this series, so I requested the book from the library, I got it about two months ago (we’re allowed to renew books two times maximum) and I finally decided to start reading this book I think it was either last week or the week before that.

I love the typography of “Life” on the cover, it’s so pretty.

I like how this is different than other zombie stories, unique, these zombies are almost like vampires, only a bit different, some of the similarities to most vampires are: they don’t eat, they can’t feel physical pain, and they try to live like normal humans in society, etc.
Some of the differences are: they’re slower than humans, they walk slower, some of them can’t smell stuff much, etc.

I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the first one, the interesting stuff happened near the end of the book, most of the book was kind of dull and not much happens before the end besides Collette and Adam becoming faster and a little more human-like or as they would say in the book “becoming more like the living,” Tak and his followers playing pranks, and a few new characters introduced, some who play a big part in the story and make me want to strangle at how unfair they’re being, they never even though how they would feel if they were a zombie and if they were in these situations, doing those kinds of things is not something to be proud of.

My biggest problem (although it’s also my mistake) was that I read this book after a long gap between the first one, don’t do that in between a series, because you will end up forgetting lots of important stuff that happened in the previous book, I think that’s part of the reason why I didn’t enjoy this book as much as some others have.

I know that it sounds like I hated this book, I didn’t, but I didn’t love it either, it’s average for me, the idea was really good, but the execution wasn’t as good.

This book reminds me of those times when there was so much racism in the world, there still is, but not as much and not as bad as it was many many years ago and how it wasn’t fair for some people just because they’re different and because of something can’t control. I know that I’m not the only one who is thinking this or something similar to this.

I liked the plot, a few things were revealed that shocked me, I love that there were some twists that I actually didn’t think about. Even though this book ends with a cliff hanger, I’m still not in too much of hurry to request the next one, but I’m going to try to read it soon, so that I enjoy the next one a little more and so That I don’t get so confused about who’s who and what the did in the previous novel either.

So far there are three books in this series, I don’t know of there are going to be more or if thats it for this series:

-Generation Dead (published 2008)
-Kiss of Life (published 2009).
-Passing Strange (2010)

If you want to read more reviews about this book, go to Goodreads and read the reviews in the comment section or go to other websites.

I rated this book: 3 stars.

If you read this book, then tell me what you thought about it and or the series in the comments section.