Why is it a problem that different authors decide to portray fictional beings in different ways? Reminds me of the "real vampires don't sparkle" comments from the good old Twilight days. Sure, it was silly, but real vampires don't exist and you can take all the liberties you want when writing them. Same goes for zombies.

I think all the problems you mentioned are not specific to zombie novels, I have come across unrealistic behavior (in my opinion, based on my personal experience) in pretty much every genre I read. It's not a zombie problem, it's a bad writing problem.

The same can be said about not explaining how a zombie outbreak really happened. That's only an issue when the writing is bad. With good writing, the lack of knowledge might be chosen on purpose. Like, by having a narrator who is not an all knowing scientist but a regular person who has to go by whatever the government chose to leak to the media.

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> Even though zombie fiction has become more and more popular over the years,

Really? I was under the impression that the zombie trend has slowed down significantly. Is there anything new I should read? I think The girl with all the gifts was the last one I read in the genre.