World War Z

One of the reviews quoted in the book said it was "chillingly plausible." Yeah, I don't know about that. There were lots of places where it felt like the author was just getting up on his political soapbox for some sometimes pretty terrible takes, especially the part about Israel, where he tries to paint Israel as a perfect benefactor doing everything they can to help the ungrateful Palestinians. When he introduced a Palestinian narrator, I hoped he would be providing another side of the story, but it turned out to be more nuance-free praising of Israel and how the narrator was wrong to ever distrust them. It was just so clearly the author using this character as a puppet to make his point, and he doesn't feel like a real person at all; overall, a very shallow treatment of this issue. There were a number of other bad or weird portrayals of sensitive issues, like the author's insistence on making a character described as an "Apartheid war criminal" into some kind of hero (who gets a hug from a Black person! so it's all ok! /s), without ever providing a perspective on the pain and suffering caused by his plan - very odd for a book that's supposed to show a variety of voices. There were a number of events that seemed significant but were brushed past without any in-depth treatment, like the 'brief nuclear exchange' between Iran and Pakistan. What? You're just going to write one chapter and leave it at that, with seemingly the only ramifications being that winter got longer? And the buildup to the exchange didn't exactly make it seem 'chillingly plausible', either. Also, the chapter on "otakus" was approximately the cringiest thing I've ever read. Overall, I was disappointed, which is a shame because I was really excited by the format and some of the ideas were very cool (especially the underwater zombies). But it wasn't executed well.