Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Rot & Ruin is a young adult zombie novel but it’s not your run of the mill battle to survive the apocolypse zombie novel.

Rot & Ruin is set about fifteen years after the first night; when people stopped dying for good and started rising from the dead. As expected, the first night sent the world into a whirlwind of panic and a battle for survival. A baby during the first night, Benny Imura was rescued by his older half-brother, Tom.

These days, most people won’t leave the secuity of the chain link fences which surround towns that have sprung up in the years since the first night. Within these fences life has been pieced back together. Towns have been built, families created, adults go to work and kids go to school, trading happens. In Mountainside, once you turn fifteen you need to find a job or else your rations will be halved. After a string of failed attempts, Tom offers to take Benny on as an apprentice; he is a zombie hunter out in the rot and ruin. Tom is a local hero. The police and mayor love him; all the women want to be with him and all the men want to be him. All except Benny and his heroes: bounty hunters Charlie Pink-eye and Motor City Hammer. They believe Tom is a coward, not worth the ground he stands on.

As Benny begins his training, Tom realises that Benny has no understanding of what life is like beyond the fences. Beyond the fence there are no laws or enforcers of the law. It is rough and dangerous and no one is there to save you. During his first trip beyond the walls, his life as he knows and his veiws about it rapidly change, as it starts to look like his life and the lives of all he cares about may be in danger.

Rot & Ruin is not my normal type of book but I had challenged myself to try new things this year. It is a great first book in a series and it can also be read as a stand alone. I sped through book one to four in the space of a week. The final book Bits & Pieces is more of a collection of stories woven through memories of our favourite characters, and some new characters, beginning at the first night right through to present day. Rot & Ruin is not only a zombie book, it is a coming of age story that just happens to be filled with zombies.

Reviewed by Kristen Clothier

Catalogue link:  Rot & Ruin

What the Teen Book Club Has Been Reading

Hi everyone! Every second week Hastings Library hosts the Teen Bookclub. It’s filled with fun and laughter and a lot of talk about books. Check out what we’ve been reading this week!:

The Rest of Us Just Live Here – Patrick Ness

What if you aren’t the Chosen One?
The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?
What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.
Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.

I loved this book! If you’re ever having an ordinary or blah day read this book and find out that we’re all extraordinary in an ordinary kind of way.

Sweet – Emmy Laybourne

People would kill to be thin.
Solu’s luxurious celebrity-filled “Cruise to Lose” is billed as “the biggest cruise since the Titanic,” and if the new diet sweetener works as promised—dropping five percent of a person’s body weight in just days—it really could be the answer to the world’s obesity problem. But Laurel is starting to regret accepting her friend Viv’s invitation. She’s already completely embarrassed herself in front of celebrity host, Tom Forelli (otherwise known as the hottest guy ever!) and she’s too seasick to even try the sweetener. And that’s before Viv and all the other passengers start acting really strange.
But will they die for it, too?

If you think diet pills are the solution to getting thin think again! Cruises, cannabilism, addiction and diet pills are just some of the interesting quirks this book explores. Recommended by Hannah.

Hush, Hush – Becca Fitzpatrick

A SACRED OATH
A FALLEN ANGEL
A FORBIDDEN LOVE
Romance was not part of Nora Grey's plan. She's never been particularly attracted to the boys at her school, no matter how hard her best friend, Vee, pushes them at her. Not until Patch comes along. With his easy smile and eyes that seem to see inside her, Patch draws Nora to him against her better judgment.
But after a series of terrifying encounters, Nora's not sure whom to trust. Patch seems to be everywhere she is and seems to know more about her than her closest friends. She can't decide whether she should fall into his arms or run and hide. And when she tries to seek some answers, she finds herself near a truth that is way more unsettling than anything Patch makes her feel.
For she is right in the middle of an ancient battle between the immortal and those that have fallen - and, when it comes to choosing sides, the wrong choice will cost Nora her life.

Jessica loved this book! Action, romance and drama, what more could you ask for?

The Way We Fall – Megan Crewe

It starts with an itch you just can't shake. Then comes a fever and a tickle in your throat. A few days later, you'll be blabbing your secrets and chatting with strangers like they’re old friends. Three more, and the paranoid hallucinations kick in.
And then you're dead.
When sixteen-year-old Kaelyn lets her best friend leave for school without saying goodbye, she never dreams that she might not see him again. But then a strange virus begins to sweep through her small island community, infecting young and old alike. As the dead pile up, the government quarantines the island: no one can leave, and no one can come back.
Those still healthy must fight for the island’s dwindling supplies, or lose all chance of survival. As everything familiar comes crashing down, Kaelyn joins forces with a former rival and discovers a new love in the midst of heartbreak. When the virus starts to rob her of friends and family, she clings to the belief that there must be a way to save the people she holds dearest.
Because how will she go on if there isn't?

Recommended by Hollie – Great read, as if we weren’t scared enough by real life flu virus’ here’s the book version!

Flip – Martyn Bedford

Alex, 14, goes to bed in December, and wakes in June, in a strange house to a strange family. In the mirror, he sees Flip. Unless Alex finds out what's happened and how to get back to his own life,  he may be trapped forever inside a body that belongs to someone else. What is identity, the will to survive, and what will we sacrifice to survive?

Highly recommended by Vaari

Asking For It – Louise O’Neil

It's the beginning of the summer in a small town in Ireland. Emma O'Donovan is eighteen years old, beautiful, happy, confident. One night, there's a party. Everyone is there. All eyes are on Emma.
The next morning, she wakes on the front porch of her house. She can't remember what happened, she doesn't know how she got there. She doesn't know why she's in pain. But everyone else does.
Photographs taken at the party show, in explicit detail, what happened to Emma that night. But sometimes people don't want to believe what is right in front of them, especially when the truth concerns the town's heroes...

In bookclub we share everything we’ve read, including the really bad ones. This slots really nicely into this category! This book was hideous – that is the actual word used by Jessica. I’ve also read it and unfortunately can see how this is reflected in our society today.

By MzLib