Title: Undead
Release date: 1st September 2011
Publisher: Chicken House
SCHOOL TRIPS. PACK A LUNCH.
AND PICK A WEAPON.
When their ski-coach
pulls in at a café, everyone gets off except for new girl Bobby and bad boy
Smitty.
They’re hardly best
buds, but that soon changes when, through the falling snow, they see the others
coming back.
Something has
happened. Something bad.
TIME TO GET A LIFE….
When Bobby, English/all American girl, goes on the ski-trip
from hell with her class mates, little does she know that the trip back will be
far worse than the trip itself. Finding that most of the class and all of the teachers have turned into
brain munching zombies becomes just one of their concerns as Bobby teams up
with fellow survivors, fighting their way out of a very snowy Scotland with no
transport, communication and a limited food supply. The group come up with a
lot of ideas as to what caused the zombie breakout, Pete suggests that they are
part of a scientific experiment, but no one would leave a bunch of school kids
out there at the mercy of zombies, would
they?
This book was one of the very few novels which manages to
combine humour, horror, romance and family successfully. Of course what
appealed to me was the title and the promise of zombie fighting fun but I am
really pleased to say, I got much more than that. This novel is along the lines
of Resident Evil (amongst many, many others) where there is some sort of hidden
experimentation going on that goes badly wrong and the inevitable attempted
cover-up.
Undead manages to
capture the hierarchical nature of high school life while the students battle
for their lives and that’s part of what makes this book really funny. Bobby,
social outcast from America ,
Alice , the
school b***h, Smitty, the bad boy and Pete the geek have to work together to
save their lives and this offers some brilliant humour with a touch of unexpected
romance on the cards. Having never even wanted to sit next to each other in
class, the students have to trust one another in order to survive but it us
hard for them to break the habit of a lifetime and the back biting continues
throughout, despite life threatening danger. Kirsty McKay’s characterisation in
this sense is great. We all know someone ‘stereotypically’ like these
characters and that’s what made the book so fun.
The introduction of Scottish natives with their
colloquialisms, as well as vivid descriptions, sets the book well and truly in
the UK .
For me, this really set the scene and introduced the remoteness and isolation
that the characters feel (if you’ve ever been to Scotland , you’ll know what I mean).
While Scotland ’s highlands
and luscious green fields are great during the day (If you haven’t been to Scotland , you
should go, it is truly beautiful), the author reminds us that this can be
terrifying during a snowstorm in the dark being chased by zombie hordes.
While much of the book has the characters skulking hiding
from zombies and Carrot Man (who may or may not have caused all this) usually in
the coach or a service station or running for their lives from the zombies… or
Carrot Man, the pace of the novel kept me engaged and turning every page.
However, the underlying conspiracy theory intrigued me and kept me hooked until
the end where (spoiler alert?) I wasn’t disappointed.
Overall, a really good, edge of the seat read with elements
for everybody. I would say that there isn’t enough romance/family/humour to
entertain readers who don’t like horror (although these things are an added
bonus) and honestly, if you pick up a book called Undead and aren’t pleased by
a bit of gore, teenagers wielding weapons, a few infected teachers and awesome
action-packed driving (of both coaches and quad bikes) then prepare to be
thoroughly disappointed as this book provides these and so much more!
4.5/5 A brilliant addition to YA horror.
Additional note: When reading this book, I didn't realise that it had been published in 2011. A copy of the playaway (an mp3 audiobook) recently came in at my local library and I was really interested in this title, so I ordered the physical book. When blogging, I realised that the book was published in 2011 and so the sequel will actually already be released which means I can order it now.... right now!
https://capitadiscovery.co.uk/lancashire/items/1423445?query=kirsty+mckay&resultsUri=items%3Fquery%3Dkirsty%2Bmckay
I <3 libraries!!!!!!
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