Undead by Kirsty McKay

Publisher: Chicken House
Published: 1st September 2011
Pages: 294
Synopsis:
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. 


Review:
How does a hopeless romantic manage to love a book about zombies so much? I don't do zombies, or even horror movies. I get ridiculously scared, stupidly quickly. And even though my heart was in my throat reading most of this, I loved it. The undead were traditionally slow-moving, gross without being disgusting and so completely intriguing I really wanted to know how they even happened!

The bunch of rag-tag survivors might be a little bit cliché but it works. Just like Sophie, I could not tell if Bobby was a boy or girl at the start; it was her comment 'You're a boy, fix that!' that made me realise. And love her even more! She is an incredibly brave girl but you could still feel her fear, which is brilliant. Smitty should have annoyed me and I thought he would but he turned out to be really sweet and brave, the perfect little hero - plus some of his lines reminded me of DiNozzo from NCIS, which is awesome! I wanted to smack Alice for most of the book but she is a much needed character, and very typical of my experience at school. And finally Peter; he kind of reminded me of McGee, smart but with moments of cool that he didn't even notice.

The story did not stop for a moment, McKay successfully keeping the drama and action up throughout the whole book, which is impressive! I'm so glad the sequel is coming out next month, I don't think I could wait much longer than that!