Graphic Novel Review: My Boyfriend is a Monster... I Love Him to Pieces

I have been shamefully neglectful of the blog in recent weeks. If the blog were my child, the state would have taken it away and given it to a more loving writer with a monthly stipend for food and clothing. In my defense, In the last month I moved to a new state and started a new job with a different population and in a different sector than ever before. So there's been that to adjust to. In addition, I've been named one of the committee members for the Cybils Awards, an Internet blogger award. So prepare yourself for lots of graphic novel reviews in the upcoming months. There are thirty-eight books on the list and I've only read four of them. Well, five as of today.

Now, it's common knowledge that I love zombies. So I may be a bit biased here but I did love this one.

I Love Him to Pieces follows two teenagers falling in love in circumstances that are less than ideal. Dicey is a jock. She has played baseball since she was a little girl and now she's the only girl on the high school baseball team. Jack is a nerd. Bona fide, class A, RPG playing nerd with nerdy microbiologist parents. The two should have absolutely nothing in common. In fact, until they are paired up as partners for a school project, their paths never crossed. But once they do, the two find out they are more alike than you would think.

Their romance is slow to progress. It isn't until half-way through the book that Jack even asks Dicey out on their first date. However, what ensues may be the absolute worst date in the history of the world. As Jack and Dicey sit down to a pleasant picnic while playing hooky from school, the zombie apocalypse begins. That's right, sirens wail and the two flee to a secure location to wait for rescue as chaos reigns. The rest of the book is a madcap dash for safety featuring a mysterious zombie hunter named Mack and an ice cream truck.

Overall, though at times, the plot lines up a little too neatly. For example, as the title would indicate, Jack is bitten by a zombie and faces the deterioration of all higher brain function but the agents escorting him and Dicey happen to have a dosage of the new experimental drug developed by Jack's parents to halt the zombie fungus before it can destroy his humanity. Of course they do.

It also seemed like the ending of the book was a little rushed. Given that we were half-way through the book before zombies ever make an appearance, there isn't much time for the climax and resolution of the story. I would have preferred to spend a little more time zombie-bashing and a little less time at Dicey's baseball games and Jack's D&D sessions.

Still, the characters were well developed and delightfully flawed. I also enjoyed the reversal of the "She's All That" roles. I was quite smitten with Jack, who is endearingly geeky and socially awkward. At one romantic moment, he breaks the tension by pointing out a factual inaccuracy on Dicey's tee-shirt. Dicey, on the other hand, is hot-tempered but loyal to the point of self-destruction. When she discovers that Jack has ventured out on his own in an attempt to keep her safe, she foolishly forges out after him alone. And when she finds him, she proceeds to rip into him for abandoning her in the first place and then saves his life.

I Love Him to Pieces is a promising start to a new series, one I look forward to reading the rest of.

Final Grade: B+