Zombie in Love by Kelly DiPucchio (5 STARS!)

Mortimer is looking for love. And he's looking everywhere! He's worked out at the gym (if only his arm wouldn't keep falling off). He's tried ballroom dancing lessons (but the ladies found him to be a bit stiff). He's even been on stalemate.com. How's a guy supposed to find a ghoul? When it seems all hope has died, could the girl of Mortimer's dreams be just one horrifying shriek away?

So I just read the most adorable children's book ever!

Now granted, I have some pretty bizarre tastes sometimes, though I enjoy traditional things too. But this picture book was sitting on one of the display bookcases at the library and it was such a random title that I had to grab it. It's called Zombie in Love by Kelly DiPucchio. It's a picture book for little kids, and so some people might think it doesn’t belong on my blog, but it does!  I'm reviewing it! Because it's awesome!!

Zombie in Love tells the story of Mortimer, the world's most adorable zombie in my opinion, who's looking for love in time for the Cupid's Ball. Obviously it was on display because of Valentine's Day's approach. Anyway, so Mortimer wants a girlfriend but nothing he does impresses the ladies. Could be because they're alive and he's dead, but I'm not one to judge cross-cultural relationships (after all, I'm a HUGE  fan of Lia Habel's zombie romance, Dearly, Departed).

Poor Mortimer (great name for a zombie, by the way, since you can shorten it to Mort) tries pretty much every romance trick in the book to get a girl. He tried chocolates (in a coffin-shaped box, too!) with a girl he rides the bus with; he tried giving the mail-lady a nice, shiny Valentine's Day heart (unfortunately it was shiny because it was fresh, seems like); he gave his favorite waitress a diamond ring (the snooty witch got upset because the severed finger was still in it; boo-hoo)! He read books on dating, tried picking up chicks at the dog-walking park, took dancing lessons, worked out at the gym (his arm kept falling off, though, when he tried to lift weights) — he even sang (moaned?) love songs on the sidewalk with a rose in his teeth. But nothing worked. Poor guy. I wanna hug him.

Except he probably smells dead. =(

But if he didn’t, I'd totally hug him.

So then he gets this idea to put an ad in the paper. Then, the night of the ball, he puts on a new suit, combs his hair, puts on his best cologne, and goes to see if any girl answered his ad. So the ball starts at seven, and Mortimer waits for forever (aka until almost midnight) but no girl shows up, and every time he tries to charm one of the girls already there, she screams and runs away. So eventually he gives up and he's about to leave when he hears this crash. When he turns around, lo and behold, there's this "drop-dead gorgeous" girl named Mildred — who is also a zombie.

Yay!

They dance, they go walking and hold hands (aka pop one of their hands off, give it to the other, then clasp hands — so Mortimer is holding Mildred's severed left hand in his left hand, while Mildred is holding Mortimer's severed right hand in her right hand, and his right hand and her left hand are clasping each other), they have a late-night dinner of brains and eyeballs with glasses of heart's blood in a cemetery. And then they get married and the limo says "His and Hearse" on the back and the cans tied to the back-bumper say things like "Cranbrainy Juice" and "Dead Bull" and "Baked Brains."

So basically this book had me going, "Oh! That's…kind of disturbing. But so cute!" pretty much every page. I love it. I want to own this book. I have a small collection of picture books and I want to add this book to my collection. It's a 5/5 stars. It's quirky, it's creepy, it's sweet and it's spooky. I imagine Morticia Addams reading it to Wednesday and Pugsley when they're little. I love it.

And the illustrations are cute, too!

Have a happy and creepy (and early) Valentine's Day,

LA Knight