I've been meaning to read this book for a long time; hearing about the controversy that surrounded the movie augmented that. Now that I've read it, I can understand why the movie strayed so far from the original: the fragmented, interview style narrative doesn't lend itself well to the big screen. Instead of focusing on one (or a few) character(s), World War Z brings fractured pieces from many cultures together to create a mockumentary, a big picture view of what happened to humanity during the war. Because everything is in the past tense - and therefore the reader knows the interviewees survive - there isn't much tension in the book, though certain stories are certainly action-packed/touching/well-written/etc. 
 Another issue I found while reading is that the voices of most of the characters sound the same. Many of them could have been told by the same character and it would be difficult to tell the difference. In fact, in the final "Goodbye" chapter, everyone blurred together so much that I couldn't remember who had told which story earlier in the book. 
 That aside, World War Z has plenty of redeeming features: some of the stories are powerful. My personal favorites included the Air Force pilot who crash-landed and the units who worked with the Veterans. The Chinese submarine team that deserted also spun a fascinating tale. All these stories have something in common: they were longer and went more in-scene (versus just summarizing everything). By offering these in-scene moments, Max Brooks allowed his readers to get attached to characters; this character development and backstory made certain stories much stronger than others. 
 Though it took me a long time to finally start reading this, I'm glad that I did.