Review: Undead with Benefits by Jeff Hart

Undead with Benefits (#2) by Jeff Hart (Aug. 2014)

416 pages
Genre: Young Adult/Zombie/Comedy/Romance
Publisher: HarperTeen

Source: I bought it.

Purchase: Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository | Amazon
My Rating:  

Goodreads Summary: The living dead are living it up in this hilarious and surprisingly romantic sequel to Eat, Brains, Love, which Kirkus Reviews called “one hell of a road trip...funny, gross, and scary in equal, alternating measures."


Jake and Amanda are in love, on the run—and undead. They've teamed up with Cass, who’s ditched her former job as shady government psychic zombie-tracker, and they're headed across the border into Iowa, where there’s rumored to be a zombie cure.

Armed with a trunk full of guinea pigs (aka zombie snacks), they're ready to take on the Midwest’s first undead warlord, the psycho psychic out for their blood, and their own super awkward love triangle. But the virus is spreading faster than you can say "zombie apocalypse," and Jake, Amanda, and Cass have to find the cure—if it even exists—before the whole state of Iowa goes up in flames.

With its heartwarming blend of guts, romance, and spot-on teen humor, this road trip–ready paperback original is perfect for fans of Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies and AMC’s The Walking Dead. Readers will devour Jeff Hart's fresh, funny, and irreverent take on love and life (well, unlife) in an eat-or-be-eaten world.

+ Add to Goodreads

My Review

It has gore. It has hilarious moments. It has brains.

Undead with Benefits is a humorous teenage story about love and friendship in a world slowly filling with zombies. This is the sequel to Eat Brains Love. Although I enjoyed the first book better, this one still packed a punch.

The reader gets to see inside the head of the hormone filled Jake, also a zombie, and Cass, the girl who you can’t help but like, also someone with psychic type powers. Jake’s girlfriend, the snotty Amanda, also a zombie, is part of the three person crew on a road trip to Iowa, where they hope to find the zombie cure.

The book starts out a little slow considering who is in the weird trio of travelers. Not a lot starts to happen until you get about 70 pages in. At that point the plot really starts to move forward and at this time I finally felt like Undead with Benefits had a better chance of living up to its predecessor. I was relieved to finally be completely engrossed in the story. What I thought was going to be kind of a lame teenage book (which is saying something since it stars zombies and psychics) turned into a very cool and funny novel. I liked the amount of blood and guts there was mixed in with the funny one-liners. It’s always interesting when zombies try to live off of eating just genuine pigs. Later in the story when it picked up we also get to meet new characters and get a new setting, which made everything that much more entertaining and interesting.

Undead with Benefits is a good book, but the first book in the series, Eat Brains Love, was a great book. I still say you should give this series a try, especially if you like a good laugh given to you by some teenage zombies. I'm not sure if there is going to be a third book, but if there is that would be nice, if there isn't, the ending wasn't really all that bad.

Check out my review of the first book! My Four Star Review of Eat, Brains, Love

Waiting on Wednesday #11: Undead with Benefits, Keep Your Friends Close, & Half Wild

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event, hosted byBreaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

The Short Waits

Undead with Benefits by: Jeff Hart

Release Date: Aug. 26, 2014

Goodreads Summary: Jake and Amanda are in love, on the run—and undead. They've teamed up with Cass, who’s ditched her former job as shady government psychic zombie-tracker, and they're headed across the border into Iowa, where there’s rumored to be a zombie cure.
Armed with a trunk full of guinea pigs (aka zombie snacks), they're ready to take on the Midwest’s first undead warlord, the psycho psychic out for their blood, and their own super awkward love triangle. But the virus is spreading faster than you can say "zombie apocalypse," and Jake, Amanda, and Cass have to find the cure—if it even exists—before the whole state of Iowa goes up in flames.
With its heartwarming blend of guts, romance, and spot-on teen humor, this road trip–ready paperback original is perfect for fans of Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies and AMC’s The Walking Dead. Readers will devour Jeff Hart's fresh, funny, and irreverent take on love and life (well, unlife) in an eat-or-be-eaten world.

Why I'm Waiting: I enjoyed the comedic zombie novel Eat, Brains, Love a great deal, so why wouldn't I read its sequel?

Keep Your Friends Close by: Paula Daly
Release Date: Aug. 19, 2014

Goodreads Summary: From breakout thriller writer Paula Daly, Keep Your Friends Close is a riveting and electrifying story of a husband and wife and the devious best friend who comes between them.

Natty and Sean Wainwright have a rock-solid marriage—with two daughters, a successful business, and a beautiful house, they are a model family. When their younger daughter falls ill on an overseas school trip, Natty rushes to her side. Luckily, Natty’s best friend from college, Eve Dalladay, is visiting and offers to stay with Sean to lend a hand in the Wainwright household. But Natty returns home to find that Eve has taken to family life a little too well: Sean has fallen in love with her. With no choice but to put on a brave face, Natty attempts to start anew—yet no matter how hard she tries to set herself upright, Eve is there to knock her down again. Then Natty receives a mysterious note that says Eve has done this before—more than once—and the consequences were fatal. On a mission to reveal Eve as a vindictive serial mistress, Natty must navigate through a treacherous maze of secrets and lies that threatens her life and the safety of her loved ones.

Why I'm Waiting: There is just something about this book's creep factor that has piqued my interest.

The Long Wait

Half Wild (Half Life Trilogy #2) by: Sally Green

Release Date: March 24, 2015

Goodreads Summary: "You will have a powerful Gift, but it’s how you use it that will show you to be good or bad."
In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, seventeen-year-old Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world's most powerful and violent witch. Nathan is hunted from all sides: nowhere is safe and no one can be trusted. Now, Nathan has come into his own unique magical Gift, and he's on the run--but the Hunters are close behind, and they will stop at nothing until they have captured Nathan and destroyed his father.

Why I'm Waiting: Do you see the cover? Do you? I can't believe they released the cover so early just to drive me insane. I really liked the first book, Half Bad, and I can't wait to get my hands on this pretty.

What are you waiting on?

Review: Eat, Brains, Love by: Jeff Hart

Eat, Brains, Love by: Jeff Hart (Oct. 1, 2013)

352 pages

Genre: YA/Horror/Comedy
Publisher: Harper Teen

Source: I won a free ARC of this book from Sara over at Medusa’s Library. This in no way affected my honest review. Thanks Sara!

Purchase: Barnes and Noble | Amazon | The Book Depository

Goodreads Summary: Two teenage zombies search for brains, love, and answers in this surprisingly romantic and laugh-out-loud funny debut novel with guts.

Jake Stephens was always an average, fly-under-the-radar guy. The kind of guy who would never catch the attention of an insanely popular girl like Amanda Blake-or a psychic teenage government agent like Cass. But one day during lunch, Jake's whole life changed. He and Amanda suddenly locked eyes across the cafeteria, and at the exact same instant, they turned into zombies and devoured half their senior class.

Now Jake definitely has Amanda's attention-as well as Cass's, since she's been sent on a top-secret mission to hunt them down. As Jake and Amanda deal with the existential guilt of eating their best friends, Cass struggles with a growing psychic dilemma of her own-one that will lead the three of them on an epic journey across the country and make them question what it means to truly be alive. Or undead.

Eat, Brains, Love is a heartwarming and bloody blend of romance, deadpan humor, and suspense that fans of Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies will devour. With its irresistibly dry and authentic teen voice, as well as a zombie apocalypse worthy of AMC's The Walking Dead, this irreverent paperback original will leave readers dying for the sequel that's coming in Summer 2014.

My Review

Now is the perfect time to read Eat, Brains, Love, a funny, no ex that, hilarious teen novel about the life of two newly turned teenage zombies and the agency out to get them. It is definitely original and definitely worth reading. 

I refuse to put spoilers in this review because I want people to read it and give it a chance all on their own. With that being said, there are several things I can’t discuss because of this so hang in there if the review seems a little vague.

Why this non-zombie blogger devoured Eat, Brains, Love:

• Considering Eat, Brains, Love is a book about zombies it is scarily realistic at times. 

• I love that the author wasn't afraid to have the main characters actually use real curse words when they were in horrible situations. 

• The characters were pretty relateable and very interesting. Getting inside the head of a teenage boy with hormones who just so happens to also be a zombie and feels bad for eating his classmates is definitely unique. Jake was a hoot and I loved his POV. As readers we also get the story from Cass’s POV, a very interesting and likable female lead who happens to be hunting Jake down as part of a secret government agency. There is also a handful of minor characters that are all just as interesting and all just as intense as the main ones.

• It’s extremely funny. If my copy wasn't an ARC I would share so many amazing quotes with you, but I'm really not supposed to since it is an ARC copy.

• It’s got the right amount of gore for all you zombie fans out there. There is also one scene that was so creepy it turned my blood cold.

• There isn't a huge info dump. Who doesn't love that?

A few things that didn't impress me:

• There is going to be a sequel and I wasn’t warned about this in advance. (I know it states this in the synopsis I gave you earlier from groodreads but I don't always read those thoroughly or pay attention with they start mentioning "this book is like this movie/book/show etc.") This frustrates me beyond belief. Don't get me wrong, I’m going to read the next book, but I little warning would have been nice so I knew what to expect when the book came to a close. So I guess this isn't really anything with the actual book that bothered me but oh well.

• There are a couple of small stereotypes that I can’t go into without spoiling the book, but lets just say they were annoying.

• The romance wasn’t all that great. This was disappointing because the word love is even in the title. Luckily I think the next book will be even better with the romance aspect of the novel. In the end, this in no way kept me from really liking this book.

Bottom Line: Read it. You won’t find a better time to read a Zombie novel than right now. Eat, Brains, Love was an enjoyable read that was hard for me to put down. 

**I won a free ARC of this book from Sara over at Medusa’s Library. This in no way affected my honest review. Thanks Sara!