Week Four: The New Weird

           For the fourth week,I read Monster Island by David Wellington, the author from Pittsburgh. He wrote many online stories about zombie and they are popular. The Monster Island is a fun adventure story which made me feel excited and thrill with the characters the whole time I was reading. The adventure that involves zombie was incredible and fun for everyone; the author was being able to make me understand and imagine what was happening in the story and got my attention through the end of the book.

Monster Island starts with the apocalypse. There are two main characters which are Dekalb and Gary. Dekalb is a survivor from America who stuck in Africa with his daughter. Dekalb promises to find anti-HIV medicine for Mama Halima, who is a powerful warlord. Dekalb knows the place where to get the medicine. He travels from Somalia to New York and hopes he can get the medicine at UN building. At New York, Dekalb and his team meet Gary. Gary is a training doctor. Gary has found a way to retain his identity and preserve his mind after death.

The whole story can be described by the word ‘weird’ in many details. For example, first thing is that the story is about apocalypse which turned the whole city into hell and people who survived had to live secretly, away from the zombies. Second, the main characters have been in doctor and medicine fields. Last, Somalia child army and Mama Halima are the examples of woman and child abuse which reflect as one of the problems we have nowadays.

From the whole book, I found a part of the story compelling which is. "One of the girls opened up with her rifle, a controlled burst, three shots. Chut chut chut chopping up the grey water. Chut chut chut and the bullets tore through the red windbreaker, tore open the woman’s neck. Chut chut chut and her head popped open like an overripe melon and she sank, slipping beneath the water without a sound and still, pressed up against the railing on Liberty Island, a hundred more reached for us. Reached with pleading skeletal hands to clutch at us, to take what was theirs." The author described this part so well. He makes me feel i was there in that scene and witness everything that happened in the novel.