Warm Bodies Change

Perry's original dream job is to be involved in gardening, to grow food and provide society with more options. This cultivating instinct becomes a part of R, too. When R eats Perry's brain, it plants a seed (see what we did there?) that becomes an idea, which leads R toward his goal of changing the world.

This line from Perry to Julie is almost as sappy as Eric Clapton's "Change the World." Almost. But once you know how Warm Bodies ends, this line turns out be a pretty big piece of foreshadowing.

R is angry here, obviously. He's angry at the world. The monsters here aren't the zombies, they're the people who readily give in to death, like it's their only choice. This anger drives R to change things.

This quote reminds us of The Beatles "Hello, Goodbye," which is referenced a couple times in this book. R says yes, the world says no, it says stop, and R says go go go. The world says goodbye, but he says hello.

Julie's question is about kissing a zombie. We'd google "kissing a zombie" to see if this has ever been asked before, but we're scared of what the results might be. Also, we don't want that saved in our browser cache. Who knew that all it takes to change the world is a little necrophilia?

Change requires hope. Even though Julie's yellow hope wall is blank, it's still, you know, there. She may not be the best at coming up with ideas (see 2.6) but she's got hope, so that's something.

You know when people have (or think they have) a chronic medical problem and they call it their "condition"? This is how Julie views the "human condition": as a sickness. And Dr. Julie is determined to cure it.

R realizes this as he's dining on some tasty human flesh. But it's okay, it's not too late! He decides to change right then and not eat the brain. It's a start, but we can really just decide not to die and live forever? Does it seriously work that way? Maybe in the world of Warm Bodies it does.

The general (Julie's dad), Colonel (Rosso), and builder of cities (Perry's dad), didn't do anything but preserve the status quo. Here R learns that you don't have to be in a position of power to be an agent of change.

Most of the change R and Julie focus on has to do with humans. You'd think all the humans-eating-humans action might make the people a little more sympathetic toward livestock. Do you think they'll apply this change toward a vegetarian lifestyle and eternal life for other organisms, too?