Zone One - Colson Whitehead
Now, (a) it's a zombie novel, but (b) it's supposed to be a literary novel as well. It's supposedly a "punchy cocktail of horror, comedy and social critique". I will say it is an extremely wizzbang set of words. Speaking of reconstruction efforts and data collection after the apocalypse, the story says: "The scientists wanted the sweeper data to superimpose it on their map of the smithereens and generate prophecies." That's just one tiny piece of all the wordsmithing that goes on in this story. "Smithereens"! What a word.
However, can you really have a zombie novel where people are crushed by the weight of how dumb society is? Can you have a zombie novel were everyone, and especially the protagonist, is miserable? Well, sure. The apocalypse isn't necessarily jolly. But so far the people in the story are miserable because they're miserable, not because the world ended. They would have been miserable anyway. WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?!