Not what I expected. 
 Zombies are not my thing. I've never even seen a Zombie movie. I read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, but thought it was silly and really only enjoyed the original Austin parts. Again, Zombies are not my thing. I only picked up the book because everyone was talking about it and despite my apathy towards the genre, I try not to be too narrowminded. I expected this to be just another implausible, unrealistic, silly story. I was wrong. 
 Now when I say I'm wrong, I don't meant that I believe that a throng of mindless, decaying, reanimated corpses are going to come crash through my door to eat me. I mean, take the Zombies out of it and think of it as a pandemic. A legitimate, scary pandemic like Ebola. How would the various countries react? China? Israel? Russia? The US? Brooks postulates a very scary and politically accurate hypothesis of how they each would. I truly believe the US would (and probably does) cover up scary things just to keep the public calm. And Israel closing its borders fits right in line with their policy. This aspect of the book is a political satire. 
 But the truly haunting part, the disturbing and terrifying part is the human, eye witness reports. That's how the story is told, through various interviews from eyewitnesses during the different parts of the war in the different parts of the world. How would the militaries handles it? And regular civilians? I could easily see how people would lose their minds, their honor, their humanity when faced with relocation, starvation, hopelessness, lawlessness. And that's when they're safe and not fighting Zombies! I can see where governments and militaries would make the incredibly hard choices of huge sacrifices to save the small few they can. And not being able to live with the consequences, either by commiting suicide or descending into madness. 
 I can see how war would effect not just the humans and countries, but the ecology and the environment of the earth. And the animals. I love that Max Brooks takes all of that into consideration. 
 Overall, I thought this book was very well written, thought provoking and intelligent. Will I ever read it again? No. The stories are so memorable that they will stay with me, haunt me for a long time. Will I recommend it to people? Absolutely.