The Infects: Review

Review:

Nick (alias Nero) is stuck with a bunch of juvies for the next few months at a reformation camp in the wilderness. It’s the last place any of them want to be, and it only gets worse when some of the kids turn into flesh-eating zombies after eating some genetically enhanced chicken. The ironic part of all of this is that the whole reason Nero is at the juvie camp is because of an unfortunate incident at a chicken processing plant where he used to work. All of that aside, Nero now must fight against the zombies he may have had a hand in creating.

This one was a lot of fun, but I will admit, it took a while for me to get into it. The first 100 pages or so are devoted to Nick and his family dealing with money problems and Nick flirting with a girl at work over chicken parts. I expected the zombies to turn up a lot sooner than they did, but once the carnage starts, it’s pretty fast-paced from there.

This isn’t your typical zombie novel. In fact, I wasn’t ever scared, or even on the edge of my seat. It’s very reminiscent of Zombieland and even a little Shawn of the Dead, though I didn’t feel this book had the intensity that those two movies managed to hold despite the comedy. I’m not sure if the lack of tension was in the writing, or if it was because I was laughing at the situations. I must hand it to Mr. Beaudoin. He definitely has a way with words. He’s created a very memorable character in Nick/Nero. His observations are so dead-on and so sarcastically funny, that this book could have been about baking cookies and I still would have loved his character. The rest of the characters were okay, and served their purpose, but Nero totally steals the show.

As I said earlier, the book has a bit of a slow start with quite a bit of set-up, but once the zombies make an appearance there is plenty of gore. Had the book not been so funny, I may have been grossed out. I’m not one who enjoys a lot of gore, and there were a few times when I flinched a little at the graphic descriptions of death and dismemberment.

My biggest complaint is that there seemed to be a lot of holes in the story. This may just be my opinion, but there are things I wanted to know more about. Still, this is an enjoyable read, and definitely one I would recommend to zombie fans.