Bite

May 9, 2016
Merbeth centers the humanity of the bad guys in her gleeful postapocalyptic gore-fest debut. A crew of raiders and cannibals take in a wandering 16-year-old girl, dub her Kid, and shove her suddenly into their lifestyle of killing off townies, taking their stuff, and enjoying dinners of canned beans and fresh meat amid wound care and cautious camaraderie. When they hear that a mysterious figure named Saint is trying to return law and order to the wastes and has a reward out to anyone who brings in their crew alive, they decide to take the fight to him. The setting is barely sketched out and the action sometimes feels like a text description of a first-person shooter game, but McKenna makes it hard not to root for her quirky, amoral killing machines: gap-toothed, dreadlocked team leader Wolf; creepy Dolly with “blue hair and an assault rifle”; low-key, solid Tank; and Pretty Boy, who always runs away. Agent: Emmanuelle Morgen, Stonesong Literary.

May 15, 2016

"Never take a ride from strangers" is something children learn at a young age, but 16-year-old Kid is alone and has been walking in a desert for days. She'll take her chances in a jeep carrying the armed likes of Wolf, Dolly, Tank, and Pretty Boy, a rough crew with big trouble on their tail. Kid soon is swept up in a heated race across the nuclear wasteland that is now the world. In an environment that turns people into monsters, where the line between good and bad is thinner than a knife edge, survival is the least of Kid's problems. VERDICT This postapocalyptic debut may seem to take its scenery straight from the film Mad Max, but Merbeth has created her own universe filled with destruction and not a small amount of grim, acerbic wit. Fans of Mira Grant's "Newsflesh" series will be pleased by the smart writing.--KC

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2016
Merbeth's action-driven debut introduces us to Kid, a teenage girl who has known no world other than this postnuclear apocalyptic one. She's barely surviving alone after the death of her father. Knowing she should not trust strangers but too tired and hungry to care, Kid gets in a car with two ominous figures, the large, dreadlocked Wolf and the bright-blue-haired Dolly. And so begins a fast-paced ride through a barren world in which food and water are scarce, Raiders and Sharks rule the trade routes, and cannibalism is a real survival option. The first-person narration will leave readers hanging on Kid's every word as she falls in with Wolf and his gang. The first battle scene comes immediately and is closely followed by another and then another, constantly escalating. But in between the fighting, there is compelling character development. Wolf's crewvillains all, but principled onescomes to be known and loved by Kid. She watches and learns from each and, as a result, comes through the story stronger, because she now has a family and has finally taken control of her own survival. Filled with dark humor, wit, and a realistic dystopian setting, Bite plays with the idea of who the good guys are in such a harsh world. Think Carl Hiaasen thriller set in a Mad Max world, and you have an idea of what to expect.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)