A solidly creepy start to a promising series, with a wildly frustrating cliffhanger.
The streets of Philadelphia are filled with terror once night falls.
Becket and her father live together in Center City, Philadelphia, her mother having left a few months ago. They are making do as best they can, but her father's job as police commissioner keeps him away from home an awful lot, especially with what’s going on now. People are disappearing, but there are also tales of strange sights and creepy creatures. Soon a citywide curfew keeps people locked inside at night while the nightmarish beings known as the Nightstruck wander the streets and wreak havoc. Becket is cooped up with her dreamy next-door neighbor while she worries about her father and best friend, who went off into the night and returned distressingly changed. Black neatly establishes a creepy sense of dread, but at times the scope is too claustrophobic. Becket and her father keep hearing about absurd, crazy things, but readers don’t get to see them as much as they might like. Becket is a typical teen-lit gal (presumptively white, pretty without knowing it, smart, introverted), but the circumstances and her headstrong reactions to them bring readers in. Black pulls off some horrific set pieces, and there's a great hook for a larger mystery, but, as this is a series opener, the story's narrative and emotional arcs just plain stop.
A solidly creepy start to a promising series, with a wildly frustrating cliffhanger. (Thriller. 14-17)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8004-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Tor Teen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Gory horror that thinks nihilist incoherence is the same thing as edgy. It's wrong
A court-mandated hike becomes zombie flick, laden with 1980s pop-culture references.
Seventeen-year-old Nick's life could be better. Since his worthless father, the Dude, "Has Other Concerns" than buying groceries, Nick works at the chicken factory to earn food and medicine for his oddball baby sister. An accident at the factory leaves Nick jailed for...well, it's not clear what he's jailed for. Living in an unjust world, perhaps? Nick’s troupe of realistically foulmouthed delinquents are soon fighting off chicken-gnawing, entrails-chomping zombies at the top of a mountain, calling one another “fag” every step of the way. In prose that consists of far too many one-sentence and even one-word paragraphs ("Had to see. / If it was. / Skoal. / Another step"), Nick has masturbatory fantasies about the hottest girl zombie, even while mooning over the object of his affections, Petal Gazes, a manic pixie punk-rock girl with anime eyes and a "Bauhaus" hoodie. Like Pete Hautman’s Rash (2006), this over-the-top boys'-prison-camp adventure resembles a grown-up Holes (1998), but lacks the heart and ultimate optimism of either. The sexed-up face-eating may please dedicated fans of the shambling undead, despite self-aware sarcasm that explicitly mocks the commercialism of current zombie fandom.
Gory horror that thinks nihilist incoherence is the same thing as edgy. It's wrong . (Horror. 15-17)Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5947-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Plenty of mysteries and betrayals set up the trilogy’s forthcoming conclusion, which fans will eagerly await
Earth’s few remaining normal teenagers struggle to survive in this gruesome, bloody post-apocalyptic sequel.
The world’s gone completely to hell: All nonelderly adults are dead, and most teenagers are Changed into zombielike feral children who eat humans alive. Survivors huddle into protective enclaves and protect themselves with deadly force. The cliffhanger ending of Ashes (2011)—Alex flees from the strangely religious community of Rule only to stumble into the bone-strewn larder of a pack of Changed—takes 100 pages to resolve, mostly due to the shifts in perspective to other un-Changed teenagers driving these action-packed short chapters. Alex is a prisoner of the Changed, and as they drive her through the snowy wilderness, she sees that their behavior is, disturbingly, growing less feral: They use guns, make uniforms and practice profitless cruelties. The remaining adults seem nearly as cruel, practicing Josef Mengele–style experiments and killing children to cover ancient political feuds. Sometimes it seems like the only difference is that the Changed eat their prey, devouring them in sensuously described murder and torture scenes packed with fountaining blood and festooned guts. Nearly every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, keeping the horror appropriately unending: “And then Spider squeezed the trigger.” “The knife hacked down with a whir.” “And then, it moved.”
Plenty of mysteries and betrayals set up the trilogy’s forthcoming conclusion, which fans will eagerly await . (Horror. 14-17)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60684-176-1
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Egmont USA
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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