Review: Pariah by Bob Fingerman

Pic and description from Goodreads:

A frightening, darkly comedic look at people surviving a zombie onslaught, from

award-winning comics sensation and novelist Bob Fingerman.

A global plague has nearly vanquished mankind; the citizenry of New York City is no exception. Eight million zombies. Shoulder to shoulder.

M.A.D.** thoughts:

Cross these arthritic fingers & hope to die (not too soon, thank you very much) ... Pariah is one of the pinky-swear BEST gut-bucket, post apocalyptic, zombie chow fests I have ever read. And I read lots.

In terms of a quality read, Pariah ranks right up there with The Reapers Are The Angels, Dying To Live, and World War Z. Truth.

Wait, let me go grab my reading glasses [cheaters to you youngsters out there] so I can give further deets as to why I'm taking time out from my *busy* (?) schedule to give you the skinny on why you oughta run right out and beg, borrow, buy this book. M'kay...

I'm back (did you miss me?). Okay then.

Besides a tightly written, fast-paced, utterly engrossing tale of semi-survival in the face of truly disgusting circumstances, Pariah, with its alternating POV, gets inside the head of each of the characters to paint a very realistic, totally human and sometimes laugh-out-loud riot of the entire spectrum of human emotion.

What impressed me - the characters are all nuts. Some more so than others. Beautifully, subtly, hysterically in some instances, Bob Fingerman gets the message across, loud and clear, that (read my lips, folks) ... there is NO WAY IN HELL that ANYBODY could survive a freakin' zombie-gut-munching-brain-chewing apocalypse and REMAIN SANE.

Seriously. You wouldn't think this is Rocket Science 101, but *damaged emotional stability* is a frequently ignored issue by way too many zombie writers. People get ate, people come back, more people get ate, until X happens and everyone courageously rebuilds a new world, then everbody joins hands and starts singing 'I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing or some such.

Bullshit.

Mankind gets their panties in a bunch when American Idol gets preempted, how the heck you think their gonna react when they see grandma noshing her way thru a sea of entrails?

Rebuild, my a$$. There's not enough Prozac in the entire known universe to mitigate that level of trauma/anxiety/depression :P

Furthermore, sometimes it's not even the zombies who are the worst things on two legs. Sometimes it's the guy across the hall in your apartment building. The guy that your social conditioning tells you is best left alone, or should be handled with kid gloves, but that your gut (no pun intended heh heh) instinct insists should be terminated ASAP. The character that there's just no hope of ever rationally and humanely dealing with. The can't-be-rehabilitated-and-will-mean-big-trouble-in-the-future Scum.

Pariah had one of these creeps, and I loathed him from the get-go. But that's the beauty of a well-conceived, well-written novel. It affects you.

And ... woo boy ... wow.

Okay, I'm done here. So, if you like z-reads, imo, Pariah is one of the tops!

** I won my copy from Titania at Fishmuffins of Doom [I still say that is one of the neatest blog names ever!!][she loves zombeeez almost as much as I do]