Married With Zombies by Jesse Petersen, Penguin, RRP $28, ISBN 9781849832977, Available now.

“The couple who slays together, stays together.” This should be an amusing book, right? Jibs and jabs and jibes. Maybe I’ve been ruined by Zombieland being hilarious and really I should have known that “trend books” (yeah, that’s right, I said it) rarely live up to their potential.

Married With Zombies is the story of Sarah and David – who confront a dystopian future nightmare involving zombies, on their way to a routine visit to their marriage counsellor.

See, that seems funny. And there are a few giggles, mostly premised by Sarah and David being so utterly wrapped up in themselves they fail to notice the zombie warnings, then using their knowledge of zombies from the movies to become expert zombie killers.

But it’s all just so meh. The tone shifts wildly from mad action giggles to, quite frankly, mad depressing. Maybe that’s what living in a zombie world is like but I want my light and frothy zombie stories to be just that. Light and frothy with brains. Otherwise you veer into Justin Cronin/Cormac McCarthy territory and you sir, Zombie Book, are no Cormac McCarthy.

Bah, and zombie humbug.