Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Language:  Every swear word, with the exception of the F-word, is used in this book, multiple times.  Hells and Damns are used frequently and in various forms.  Exclamations involving Deity are used frequently as well.  Words such as piss, suck, prick, and pervert are also used.  There are a couple instances of someone flipping someone else off.

Violence:  Nick is verbally and physically tormented at school.  Nick wants out of the “hell hole” he is living in, even if he has to kill someone to do it.  Nick gets into a fight at school.  Some boys attack tourists and try to rob them.  They turn on Nick and beat him up.  One boy has a gun.  Someone else shows up and attacks the boys, saving Nick.  At school, a kid attacks another kid.  He tries to eat him.  There are many, many scenes of different people/creatures fighting zombies.  These generally involve weapons (gun, ax, cattle prod, rod, knife) and moves such as hitting, kicking, head butting, biting, throwing against the wall, choking and killing.  There is always blood and gore involved.  There is a car accident and people are hurt.  A young boy and his mother are kidnapped and held hostage.

Sexual Content:  Nick is called Nick the Dick or dickless Nicholas.  Nick’s mother is an “exotic dancer”.  Someone tells Nick he saw his mother naked last night, shaking her butt with money in her G-string.  When Nick sees the other dancers, he thinks it’s like seeing his sister naked.  Nick meets a girl with “curves”.  Every hormone was firing in his body.  A girl talks to Nick “almost spilling her breasts onto the glass top”.  Nick tries to keep his eyes on her face instead of her breasts, but tries to get a better look at her shapely butt.  Nick comments that steroids make your penis shrink.  Nick says marriage leads to one thing – lots of naked party time.  Nick suggests that two men are “special friends”.  Nick says he doesn’t want to die a virgin, so at least let him get laid first.  Nick talks about finding some cheap ho’s.  A young boy says that when you get older you grow hair in weird places.  Someone says, “I’ll wipe my boots on your balls.”  There is a kiss.

Adult Themes:  Nick is the victim of severe bullying at school.  Nick’s mother dropped out of school because she was pregnant.  She is an “exotic dancer” at a club.  Nick’s father is in prison for multiple murders and he has always been verbally abusive to Nick.

Synopsis

Sarcastic, quick- witted Nick Gautier thinks he knows pretty much everything about the world going on around him.  At fourteen, he’s had his share of hard knocks.  With his dad in prison, his mother working as an exotic dancer, and barely bringing in enough money to feed them, Nick knows plenty about being poor and doing without.  At school he is constantly bullied by kids who think they are better than him because they have money and status.  Nick knows how to be tough.  Then weird things start happening, like one of the kids at school tries to eat another kid.  The world Nick thinks he knows is only the surface of what is really out there.  As he quickly learns, looks can be deceiving and things are not always what they seem.

There are a few things I liked in this book.  I enjoyed the dry sarcasm Nick had.  It was quirky and often funny.  I liked the idea of paying forward the kindnesses you receive, especially if you are in a position to help others.  I could relate to a mother who loved her son and wanted better for him that what she was dealt in life.  Past that, for me, this was a read I endured.  I’m not a fan of zombie books, so it didn’t have much appeal to me.  I felt like for most of the book that I was missing out on something.  This series is a prequel to Kenyon’s adult Dark Hunter series, which I haven’t read.  I’m pretty sure that’s why I always felt like I didn’t really know some things that were going on that I should have.  Booklist gives this YA book a recommended reading level of 7^th-12^th grade.  Based on the content listed above, I would recommend 18+.