The Infects

August 6, 2012
Tainted chicken leads to the Zomb-A-Pocalypse in this twisted take on the genre. After an exhaustion-induced freakout at his job at a slaughterhouse, 17-year-old Nick “Nero” Sole is sentenced to three months at the intensive Inward Trek boot camp, where he meets other troublemakers and delinquents. Their foray into the wilderness is disrupted, however, when their counselors turn feral. Now the dead are walking, and they have a taste for flesh; Nick and his fellow survivors—including his crush, Petal—are hard-pressed to stay alive against an onslaught of unrelenting, unstoppable monsters, whose ranks grow with each new victim. Worse, their eventual rescue only leads to further horrifying revelations and a surprising twist on the zombie concept. Horror goes hand in hand with dark comedy in this wickedly unpredictable adventure, as Beaudoin simultaneously skewers the fast food industry and familiar zombie tropes. Offbeat characters and a high body count combine with an evocative narrative style—not as noirish as the one Beaudoin used in You Killed Wesley Payne, but just as edgy—to create a cinematic atmosphere. Ages 14–up. Agent: Steven Malk, Writer’s House.

November 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-Nick Sole works as an "assistant poultry conversion facilitator"-which means he butchers chickens. Or he did butcher chickens until he went a bit crazy in his workplace and wound up sentenced to "Inward Trek," an outdoor reform program for juvenile delinquents. Everyone gets a nickname, and thus Nick becomes Nero and joins War Pig, Mr. Bator, Yeltsin, Billy, Idle, Cupcake, Joanjet, Raekwon, Petal, and others in the wilderness outside San Francisco. They soon learn that their guards have been eaten by zombies, and their newfound freedom consists mostly of trying to outrun the flesh-eating undead. Occasional flashbacks introduce The Dude (Nick's dad), Nick's missing mother, and his odd but likable sister. Beaudoin plays with language, and readers need a fairly sophisticated level of pop-culture awareness to get all the references, but even without getting every snarky aside, the story moves forward. Levels of teen lust and four letter words are in keeping with high school. The story includes Chixx Nuggets, Zombrules #1 through #24, grisly descriptions of flesh-munching, Nu-Clients, and a food-engineering conspiracy much bigger and badder than expected. The number of plotlines can be distracting at times, and the how and why people turn into zombies doesn't feel well thought out, but there is a certain "horror movie" aura that keeps readers wondering what is down in the basement or waiting to pop out from behind the door. The Infects may have an audience with cool-cat readers who like being one step ahead of the adults in the room.Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2012
A court-mandated hike becomes zombie flick, laden with 1980s pop-culture references. Seventeen-year-old Nick's life could be better. Since his worthless father, the Dude, "Has Other Concerns" than buying groceries, Nick works at the chicken factory to earn food and medicine for his oddball baby sister. An accident at the factory leaves Nick jailed for...well, it's not clear what he's jailed for. Living in an unjust world, perhaps? Nick's troupe of realistically foulmouthed delinquents are soon fighting off chicken-gnawing, entrails-chomping zombies at the top of a mountain, calling one another "fag" every step of the way. In prose that consists of far too many one-sentence and even one-word paragraphs ("Had to see. / If it was. / Skoal. / Another step"), Nick has masturbatory fantasies about the hottest girl zombie, even while mooning over the object of his affections, Petal Gazes, a manic pixie punk-rock girl with anime eyes and a "Bauhaus" hoodie. Like Pete Hautman's Rash (2006), this over-the-top boys'-prison-camp adventure resembles a grown-up Holes (1998), but lacks the heart and ultimate optimism of either. The sexed-up face-eating may please dedicated fans of the shambling undead, despite self-aware sarcasm that explicitly mocks the commercialism of current zombie fandom. Gory horror that thinks nihilist incoherence is the same thing as edgy. It's wrong. (Horror. 15-17)

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July 1, 2012
Grades 8-11 It's just another day for 17-year-old Nero at the Fresh Bukket chicken processing factory until a bloody accidentand a whole bunch of destroyed machinerygets him sentenced to 90 days with Inward Trek, an organization that takes teen delinquents into the woods for character building. It's a good setup for what follows, namely the Zomb-A-Pocalypse, an ever-growing horde of flesh eaters whose unholy hunger just might have something to do with that chicken plant Nero used to work at. The hard-boiled, rat-a-tat dialogue Beaudoin perfected in the teen noir You Killed Wesley Payne (2011) creates an emotionless mood that is two-thirds dry snark and one-third gory horror. Nero is a capable but hapless hero, and one zombie in particularthe sexy, naked, blood-splashed Swannis a memorable creation. The other characters, though, blur into interchangeable originators of one-liners. Fortunately, few can pull off wordplay like Beaudoin, and his lexicographical inventions come fast and furious (the pre-eaten, dadlocks, texturbating). The parts are funnier than the whole, but they are funny. A list of zombie synonyms (from shamburgler to them thangs) concludes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)