Dearly Departed - Book Review

                CAN A PROPER YOUNG VICTORIAN LADY FIND TRUE LOVE IN THE ARMS OF A DASHING ZOMBIE?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the mores of an antique era. Sixteen-year-old Nora Dearly is far more interested in her country’s political unrest than in silly debutante balls. But the death of her beloved parents leaves Nora at the mercy of a social-climbing aunt who plans to marry off her niece for money. To Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

 

Now she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting a fatal virus that raises the dead. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and thoroughly deceased. But like the rest of his special undead unit, Bram has been enabled by luck and modern science to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

 

So I'm kinda new to this whole book-reviewing thing, but I'm gonna give it a shot. I read every second of every day because amazing books are like food and air to me a lot, so I figure I've got just as much right to laud my literary faves as anyone. Well, one relatively new book that just blew me away (I only had one complaint, and it was a small one, really) was the steampunk YA romance novel Dearly, Departed, Lia Habel's first novel in her series Gone with the Respirations.

 

First, gotta love the series name, even if Gone with the Wind doesn't take place in the Victorian (or New Victorian) Era.

 

Second, because I've been seeing some rather bizarre names for main characters lately (Pagan, Jezebel, etc.), it's nice that we've gone back to something a little old-fashioned but still fairly normal - Abraham and Nora. Of course, Abraham's a name that will often get you beat up at school not exactly a sexy-guy name, but Bram is, which is the male lead's nickname, so I'm good. And I kinda like the name Nora. Not to mention Bram's last name - Griswold. It's just… neat. The perfect surname for a zombie captain.

 

I expected Dearly, Departed to take some time getting started. I mean, Nora didn't know about zombies at the beginning of the book, and I figured we'd have to get through some world-building and stuff. Plus, the book starts off when Nora's at finishing school. I didn't expect an immediate launch into awesomeness. But Lia Habel is my new literary idol a genius and managed it. Instead of first dealing with snooty girls at charm school for New Victorian princesses, we start off right away with a zombie attack from Bram's point of view. I was immediately sympathetic toward the character - which was needed when Nora meets him. After all, Bram is a flesh-eating, brain-devouring walking corpse dead.

 

Although if you look at the UK covers (posted at the bottom), he's a pretty hot dead guy.

 

I follow Lia Habel on Facebook and I saw a photo she'd posted of some of her original notes for Dearly, Departed. At the very top were the words "sexify zombies." In Bram's case, she's totally done it. Thanks to futuristic medicine (the book takes place about 200 years in the future), although Bram lacks a pulse, he doesn't eat people and he can use words of more than 1 syllable. He's not falling apart (unlike one of his comrades, who's missing an eye and just has an empty socket in its place) and the only ways you can tell he's dead are a) post-mortem cataracts that make him look blind, b) he's pasty as a dead fish, c) he has no pulse, and d) no respiration.

 

A lot of zombie novels (like Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth), while very well-written, are never to be read after dark because they're so effing scary also extremely dark, with not enough humor to lighten things up. Lia Habel does not make that mistake. Bram's got that cute guy-humor thing going on (he's the perfect combination of the romance hero archetypes αlpha male & βeta man), Nora is spunky and funny while still slipping into seriousness when necessary, and her friend Pamela - the other female lead - has her humorous moments, too.

 

I also love Ms. Habel's ways of describing things. One of the things that got me to read this book was the excerpt on the back of the hardcover edition. In a few simple sentences, Ms. Habel set the tone of the love aspect of the story. Normally I'm not into necrophilia (vampires don't count) but the relationship between Bram and Nora is spot-on and works perfectly. I adore it to distraction.

 

(BEWARE - the following contains spoilers for The Hunger Games and The Matched Trilogy)

 

And, and, and!! Dearly, Departed has no love triangle!!! Thank you, Lia Habel, for your contribution to the Anti-Love-Triangle Foundation. Not that I hate love triangles, I'm just kinda tired of them. Exceptions would be in books like Matched by Ally Condie, The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Xander, Cal, and Gale never had a chance).

 

The pacing of the novel kept me on edge, the funny bits made me laugh, not once did I get annoyed with one of the good guys, and I only managed to call one plot twist, which is impressive of Ms. Habel. Usually it's super easy for me to call a lot of them. I give Dearly, Departed a 95% or 4.75/5.00 stars.

 

My ONLY complaint: Bram and Nora's first kiss on the mouth. All that tension and build-up was delicious, but the kiss itself was a let-down. Le sigh. But other than that? Loooooooooooved this book! I'm hopefully getting it for my birthday, along with its sequel. Can't wait to read Dearly, Beloved!

 

Concerning the covers - I like that we see Bram on these two (I like his uniform and his haircut in the first one and the close-up on his face in the second one). I don't like Nora's clothes, so much, but that's because they're not Victorian. She looks like a 1800s Southern belle in the first one and like a 17^th century French girl in the second one. But the model is pretty. =) I also love the typography of cover #2. And I think (though I could be wrong) that the word "Departed" on cover #1 has bullet holes in it, which is just awesome. =)