To absolutely no one’s surprise, Benny fails as all the jobs he tries and resigns himself to apprenticing with Tom. Benny truly doesn’t understand his brother’s expertise and philosophy, instead admiring the town bounty-hunter thugs who brag about number of kills and scavenged riches. Since then, Tom has spent years raising and protecting him, now working as a zombie- quieter. He has a memory of Tom carrying him, racing away from the arms of his mom and leaving her to their father, who was already a zombie. Benny has been carrying a grudge against Tom since the day of the Fall, fourteen years ago. Benny lives with his half-brother Tom in a gated community, only this particularly community is gated to keep the zombies out. Only, if they don’t find a job, food rations will be decreased by half, and we all know how teens like to eat. It opens in a small town of 28 thousand, with fifteen year-old Benny and his best friend Lou Chong forced to look for jobs, the bane of countless teenagers during countless summers. I love me some apocalypse fiction, and when Trudi recommended this series, I knew I had to give it a go. At worst, they’re Cracker Jacks, caramel popcorn fun with a prize at the end.

The genre is erroneously underrated the best zombie and apocalypse fiction is about wrestling with humanity, ethics and survival, with some hair-raising action to leaven the philosophy. I know, zombies, right? So passe, so early century, so urban fiction–so yawn for so many people.

Recommended to Carol by: Trudi Stafford Read July 2012 ★ ★ ★ ★

Jonathan maberry rot and ruin series