Undead with benefits, by Jeff Hart

Undead with benefits

The sequel to Eat brains love, Undead with Benefits is a tale of two high-school lovers turned zombies on the search for a cure through Zombie infested Iowa. Jake, one of the three protagonists that the reader follows. Each chapter is narrated by a different person, either Jake or Cass or Amanda, Jake’s girlfriend. Cass is a psychic who used to worked for the government before her squad was attacked by zombies and she was saved by Jake and Amanda.

The zombie virus is different in this book, once you contract the virus you need to eat living meat in order to satisfy your zombie hunger. Once you eat, your wounds heal and you regain control of your body. So far, Jake and Amanda have been satisfying their hunger with rats and any other little critters they can get their hands on, the exception being people who are “bad”. Pedophiles, raunchy truck drivers etc.

Cass on the other hand, was born with psychic abilities, which the government used to locate Zombies such as Jake and Amanda who roam the city unknown. Cass becomes increasingly suspicious of her boss, Alastaire, who reveals that he has been using Amanda’s ex boyfriend as a pet zombie. Disgusted by his plans to control these zombies and her growing interest in Jake, Cass stuns her government friends long enough for Jake and Amanda to escape during a daring raid on their hideout, gravely injuring Alastaire in the process.

Cass later finds herself inside the trunk of Jake and Amanda’s stolen car. Amanda doesn't trust Cass while Jake appreciates Cass’s help in escaping her govt. friends. Cass reveals that she knows a way to get into Iowa, sparing herself from Amanda’s wrath. However, Cass has no idea how to get inside, and out comes Alastaire on the “astral plane”, a realm only accessible by psychics as a means of communication.

His plan is simple, to keep Jake and Amanda chained and under the command of Cass until they find the cure, after which they will be “dealt with accordingly”. Cass has no reason to trust him, but she follows through anyways.

Its this back and forth between Alastaire and Cass that really dictates a lot of the major plot points, as Cass is able to influence Amanda and Jake in decisions and is able to spy in on what they are up to and how they are feeling at any time. However, ever since her stunt back at her zombie friend’s hideout she has been seriously questioning her choices and is stuck in a moral dilemma. Things are aggravated and emotions run high as she continues to grow an interest in Jake.

The ending to this book is a bit dreamy, but a lot of loopholes are closed, and all that’s left is possibilities. Do they make it out alive? What happens to Cass? Do they use the cure? What happens to the world?

Although not as thrilling or gory or realistic as most of Darren Shan’s novels, I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to my friends.

ZomB Part 2

I don't remember ever reading a book with a plot twist (of sorts) of this caliber. What do you do when the entire first book you think the main character is a girl and not a boy.

This is what I mean by Darren Shan being such a innovative and detail oriented author. He gave me, the reader, just enough information about the main character that it makes complete sense that B is short for Becky. She's just a very tomboyish girl, which can easily be explained by her abusive father and her need to be strong for herself. The ending was gripping and fast, and the ending of B’s father finally shouting out her entire name, Becky, was rather tantalizing. I could not stop reading, and lucky me, I had the next book right beside me. I finished that one as well, but I’ll keep that for another blogpost.

After the strange encounter with the Tall man, B has a field trip to the local museum with the rest of her class, something that rarely happens because of their bad behavior. However, this tip is different, as they have just finished adding the Holocaust section. At first, B doesn’t seem too concerned, the whole class has read about what happened during that time period, but when a classmate speaks up after another’s poor attempt at a joke he says this:

“One of my uncles was Polish. He was sent to Auschwitz in the thirties. Not the death camp, where they gassed people, but the concentration camp. He worked like a slave until he was a skeleton. Starved. Tortured. The bones in one of his feet were smashed with a hammer. He survived for a long time, longer than most. But in the end he was hung for allegedly stealing food from a guard. They let him hang for nearly ten minutes, without him killing him. Then they took him down, let him recover, and hung him again until he was dead.

If there are any more jokes, or if you take one step out of line from this point on, you’ll have to answer to me.”

This unsettles everyone as Jonesenzio is usually quite quiet. As the class goes through the exhibition, many of Becky’s classmates cry, but she doesn’t. Her teacher, Mr. Burke eventually speaks up, with only B answering:

“Sobering stuff isn’t it?”

“They were monsters”

“You think so?”

“Nobody human could have done that”

And here’s when Becky really starts to question her allegiance to her father

“Maybe that’s what we should do with the immigrants.”

“You can’t say that!”

“Why not? I heard about your fight with Nancy (a black girl) and how Mrs. Reed whitewashed it because of friendship with her father.”

After a brief argument Mr. Burke ends it with this very interesting quote:

“I’ve heard all the arguments before. I’m not going to tell you which side you should be on. You’re old enough to choose. All I’m saying is be aware. Know what you’re signing up for and accept the consequences. Mrs. Reed and your dad are modern day fascists. Only a fool would think otherwise.”

To be honest, many people should have someone tell them that they have a choice. They don’t have to be a certain way, be it for the gratification of a loved one, like Becky and her father. 
This is another aspect of Darren Shan's writing style; he doesn't have any problem setting the tone using horrifying details and thought provoking dialogue. That's what I love about his books, nothing is left to the imagination without his explicit permission. 

ZomB by Darren Shan

Darren Shan is undoubtedly my favorite authors of all time.The action mixed in with the tidbits of psychological horror, the smooth flowing story and proper character development really allows for his stories to come alive.

From his popular Cirque De Freak series (5+ years ago!) to his Demonata series and now his Zom-B series, Darren Shan is the only author who has maintained his style and his attention to detail throughout his publications.

Zom-B is a slight shift as it follows a young adult living in Britain who's father is racist and abusive a midst a zombie outbreak (which he and his friends deem to be conspiracy laced and a complete hoax). What I really like about this book is that the main character, right from the beginning is suffering an internal conflict, should he side with his dad completely succumbing himself to his twisted ideologies, or should he fight his dad for what he thinks is right? But.. what exactly is right or wrong?

The story unfolds following a young child in a remote city in the UK who has just seen his mother eat the brains from his father's shattered skull. He's running around the city, trying to find anyone who doesn't seem to have gone crazy. Screaming and the smell of blood and decaying bodies fills the air around him, buildings are on fire, the crazies are chasing something. The child spots someone, clean clothed, all body parts intact, no visible blood, tall, wide eyed. He walks up to the man and asks him to save him from the things, one of which begins to move at them. The tall man looks at the zombie and it stops, the child doesn't notice and grabs the man by his leg, begging and pleading to make things better.

The tall man looks at the child, puts a hand on his neck and snaps it.

Currently, the protagonist B. Smith, has yet to encounter zombies, but the real twist occurs when he meets a tall, wide eyed man who, in the previous chapter, seems to kill a child with his bear hands. This tall man seems to be friends with B's father, and claims to have met B before, although B has no recollection of him at all.

B, tired from the bizzare day of zombie conspiracy, goes up to his room to get some sleep but awakes to see the tall man standing in his room, almost observing him. Thoroughly creeped out, B loses all trust and begins to seriously question the last time he saw the tall man.