Book Review: Undead by Kirsty McKay

Undead by Kirsty McKay
#1 in the Undead series
Release Date: September 1, 2012
Publisher: The Chicken House (Scholastic)
Pages: 272
Received: ARC from publisher
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Goodreads Page

Summary

From Goodreads:

Out of sight, out of their minds: It's a school-trip splatter fest and completely not cool when the other kids in her class go all braindead on new girl Bobby.

The day of the ski trip, when the bus comes to a stop at a roadside restaurant, everyone gets off and heads in for lunch. Everyone, that is, except Bobby, the new girl, who stays behind with rebel-without-a-clue Smitty.

Then hours pass. Snow piles up. Sun goes down. Bobby and Smitty start to flirt. Start to stress. Till finally they see the other kids stumbling back.

But they've changed. And not in a good way. Straight up, they're zombies. So the wheels on the bus better go round and round freakin' fast, because that's the only thing keeping Bobby and Smitty from becoming their classmates' next meal. It's kill or be killed in these hunger games, heads are gonna roll, and homework is most definitely gonna be late.

Review

Calibrate your expectations

This is not a deep book. At all. It's not swooningly romantic, it's not heart-pounding exciting, and it's not super funny.

What it IS is a light, fun read that's worthy of a few chuckles, has a breezy romance, and held my interest throughout. Undead should be well received, just so long as readers don't set the expectations bar super high.

Also, while I don't normally associate zombie books with good winter reading, Undead's blizzard setting makes it a perfect book to read now. 

Bobby, the girl I thought was a boy

I spent the first chapter or so focusing just as much on whether or not main character Bobby was a boy or a girl as I did on the plot. I don't like narrator gender-ambiguity. It's frustrating and unfortunately pretty indicative of the depth of Bobby's characterization.

On the plus side, Bobby's narration is sufficiently gender-ambiguous that I can totally give Undead to boy readers! So, silver lining?

Back to Bobby. She's likable and has a pretty snarky sense of humor. She's also fairly capable, which is always a plus when reading zombie/survival books. She wasn't exactly Rambo, but she gamely rose to all the decapitating challenges when presented.

Basically, I wouldn't kick her out of my zombie survival group.

But those other characters?

Yeah, none of them are getting invites.

The main guy Smitty was ok, but pretty immature. Not in the, "cute MG level" type of immature, but more in the give girls wedgies and harp on 5th grade level humor kind of immature. So while he was nice and ultimately a decent guy, he was also annoying. Then again, I'm OLD, so what do I know?

There's also the smart character, and while smart characters usually make my auto approve list for zombie/post-apoc catastrophes, this one had me seriously weighing their usefulness versus their irritating personality. At certain points I would have definitely opted to take my chances without that know it all. But, again, not all bad.

And finally, what would a zombie Breakfast Club be without the popular girl? She's entirely stereotypical and there really isn't much else to say about her than that.

Taken all together, the motley group was at times funny and endearing, but also frequently irritating. Though it was a mild irritating, so there's that.

But so what?

The thing is, the characters don't need to be all that great. Do you look for likable characters with incredible depth when watching horror movies? No!

Undead is not supposed to be a deep book and the characters aren't supposed to be super developed or likable (think fairy tale characters). The plot is what's important here, and the plot is pretty decent.

Everything moves at a brisk enough pace and the setting changes often enough that I never got bored with where we were or what we were doing. It was predictable in some regards (obviously Smitty and the MC will fall for each other), but I was surprised several times by the direction the plot took. In a good way.

And even though I didn't love any of the characters, I was attached enough that I cared what happened to them. There were a few times where I was at the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next and if everyone would make it out okay.

Sometimes what did happen next was kind of far fetched verging on ridiculous, but I thought that was part of the charm of Undead. This isn't a book that takes itself seriously, and I had a lot of fun with that.

Bottom line

Undead won't be making it on the top adolescent literature lists anytime soon, but I can already hear the giddy buzz brewing among my tweens (girls AND boys!). I have a feeling this one will get passed around my library and school district through lots of word of mouth.

The zombies are more of the Evil Dead gross but funny variety, so scaredy cats like myself needn't worry. Among my readers, I think this will be more popular with the tweens, but I know at least a handful of teens will also enjoy it.

For myself, I had fun with Undead. I wouldn't rush out to buy it, but I'd check out the sequel or another book by the author if it came into my library system. The ending most definitely leads into a sequel and readers who become attached to the story will probably be pretty desperate to get their hands on the next book. Me? I'm okay waiting, but I'm still curious to find out what happens next.

Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key 

Do you have any questions about Undead that I haven't addressed? 
Feel free to ask in the comments!

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