McKay, Kirsty. Undead.

McKay, Kirsty.  Undead.  Scholastic Press  262p  $17.99     978-0-545-38188-8

2012  hs    VG-BN       Horror     

Scholastic Press describes Undead as a humorous “school-trip splatter fest”.  This is an accurate description of  Undead’s non-stop action, horror, and fun.  Kirsty McKay has a gift for bickering and banter (i.e., dialogue), evident throughout the text.

New girl Bobby is returning from a school-sponsored ski trip, but she stays on the bus when it stops at a roadside restaurant (the Cheery Chomp Cafe) for lunch.  Hours pass and the snow piles up.  Bobby flirts with clueless Smitty until their classmates finally put in a reappearance.  But their classmates have changed.  Their classmates are zombies.  Bobby and Smitty must team up to escape becoming their classmates’ next meal.

Readers will enjoy Bobby’s internal dialogue (snarky but funny) as she courageously faces the zombie uprising.  They will also appreciate Smitty’s pithy one-liners as the pair race to discover a solution to the mystery behind the zombie outbreak.  Can this really be Kirsty McKay’s debut novel?  If you are looking for a serious story about zombies, this book is not for you.  But if you are looking for a lighthearted parody of the zombie genre, you will “devour” this refreshing novel.  Readers are sure to demand the sequel, Unfed.

Zombies–Fiction, Survival–Fiction, Horror stories–Fiction, Scotland-Fiction                                                   --Hilary Welliver