Undead

Author: Kirsty McKay
Goodreads Rating: 3.97
My Rating: 3 Stars
Pages: 294
Reviewed by: Nicole

Out of sight, out of their minds: It's a school-trip splatter fest and completely not cool when the other kids in her class go all braindead on new girl Bobby. 
The day of the ski trip, when the bus comes to a stop at a roadside restaurant, everyone gets off and heads in for lunch. Everyone, that is, except Bobby, the new girl, who stays behind with rebel-without-a-clue Smitty. 
Then hours pass. Snow piles up. Sun goes down. Bobby and Smitty start to flirt. Start to stress. Till finally they see the other kids stumbling back. 
But they've changed. And not in a good way. Straight up, they're zombies. So the wheels on the bus better go round and round freakin' fast, because that's the only thing keeping Bobby and Smitty from becoming their classmates' next meal. It's kill or be killed in these hunger games, heads are gonna roll, and homework is most definitely gonna be late. 
Combining the chill of THE SHINING, the thrill ride of SPEED, the humor of SHAUN OF THE DEAD, and the angst of THE BREAKFAST CLUB, Kirsty McKay's UNDEAD is a bloody mad mash-up, a school-trip splatter-fest, a funny, gory, frighteningly good debut.

This book was a solid three stars. That being said, I still want to read the second book, The Unfed. This book was totally campy and spot on with the characterization of this being The Breakfast Club: Zombie Edition. I enjoyed the whole zombie thing and how there was no way of escaping the undead masses or how awful things were because Bobby was stuck on this class trip.

I sort of liked Bobby, she was a little too perfect as far as always having the good ideas and generally risking herself, but she was still a pretty likable character. Her narration was good, and I had no trouble following the more confusing scenes where there was a lot of "He did, she did, they did" when there was multiple characters of multiple sexes.

What I did not like was the insta-love. I felt like in this book it was add zombies, then shake well, and you get this twisted relationship between Bobby and Smitty that felt really forced. I almost feel like McKay felt that she had to add a relationship to get more readers when she should have trusted her humor to carry her through.

I will grant you this much, some of the humor was British humor which I have already admitted tends to go over my head, but not for a lack of trying to understand. I loved that Smitty always seemed on the offensive when it came to Alice (or Malice as he so affectionately called her) and I loved how they were this group of misfits that came together. I think one of my favorite parts of this book was how we saw what was happening, and then they went back and saw surveillance footage of how everything happened to them.

Finally, I loved the ending. Which I can't even tell you about, but it was by far (in my opinion) the best.