The Christian Zombie Killer's Handbook: Slaying the Living Dead Within by Jeff Kinley

★★✩✩✩
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Ben Forman was just an ordinary guy, a young professional starting his first job and falling in love with his girlfriend. Living on the outskirts of a southern city, he didn't think the zombie activity so common in metropolitan areas would hit so close to home. But it was becoming clear that the mysterious infection reanimating the dead would soon be a worldwide epidemic.

Cutting-edge and culturally relevant, The Christian Zombie Killers Handbook is a unique combination of fiction and nonfiction. It delivers a fresh approach to sin, grace, and salvation, exposing the raging beast within us all, and how to overcome life as a zombie.

In a culture that is now obsessed with stories of zombies, vampires, etc., it is important to understand how to interact with these stories from a Christian perspective. Kinley’s The Christian Zombie Killer’s Handbook attempts to do just that. Using the fiction of the zombie narrative, Kinley explores a Christian’s experience with sin. When I first noticed this book, this premise captivated me. I really looked forward to reading it. Each section has two parts – the first a fictional account of Ben Forman’s experiences in a zombie-infested area, and the second a loosely-connected explanation of Christian theology in zombie-relevant language. However, as I began reading, I quickly lost interested. The narrative was flat and cheesy, while the theology – although truthful in many ways – did not challenge me with new material. I felt that Kinley’s use of allegory, meant to connect the two parts, was a stretch, manipulating every aspect of the zombie narrative in order to fit neatly with the biblical narrative. Devoid of the clever wit and authentic engagement I was hoping for, this book left me unsatisfied in the end and I cannot say that I would recommend it to a friend. However, I do appreciate BookSneeze for providing me with a free copy of this novel and the opportunity to review it.