CHARLIE HIGSON: The Fear (The Enemy Series #3)

I finished this Monday night, hoping to get 4-6 at the library on Tuesday, but only 6 was there. The online catalog says 4 and 5 are checked in, but they're not on the shelf, and I can't get my log in to work correctly, so I can't put them on hold and have someone who works there find them for me. I checked out a bunch of other stuff, so when I take it back, I'll try again.

Honestly, I could use a little break, so it's probably for the best.

The Fear is yet another prequel. This is the oddest series ever. I don't think I've ever read anything else where the first book was set in the present and the second and third both take place before that. The Dead (#2) is the earliest, followed by The Fear (#3). The events of The Fear take place right before The Enemy (#1), so I hope the fourth book finally gets us back to the present action.

I liked this one a bit more than The Dead, but not nearly as much as The Enemy. It gives a lot of background info so things in The Enemy are more fleshed out, but man, really do not get attached to anyone in this series. Seriously. Dude. I know I talk about these really vaguely, but this series is quite good and I don't want to spoil anything. You need to go read them if you're into this genre.

CHARLIE HIGSON: The Dead (The Enemy Series #2)

I finished this one today. At first, I was mildly annoyed we were doing a flashback book right after the first installment. I wanted to find out what happened to those characters, not meet new ones.

But I suppose it sets up necessary backstory for the grown-up big bad, the group at the tower and the group at the palace.

Man, I hated a lot of these characters though. Jack is annoying. Ed is weak for the first 2/3 of the book. Bam isn't characterized much. The female trio is obnoxious as fuck, and the French chick, well, you know what her deal is pretty quickly. (Trying not to do the spoiler thing, hence the vague.) The religious nut is incredibly annoying, as they tend to be. The nerds aren't characterized much. I thought Justin and Chris were the two most interesting characters. I also liked the younger nerd boys.

But the deaths weren't as moving as they were in the first book, because so many of the characters weren't presented as likeably. I'm hoping the third book is more like the first.  

CHARLIE HIGSON: The Enemy 1

One of my friends on Tumblr recommend this series, so I got the first three from the library. It definitely does not disappoint!

Hunger Games and Divergent are child's play in the post-apocalyptic game compared to this series. Those two are fucked up societies, but at least things function basically the same as what we're used to. This series? Nope. Almost everyone over 16 is dead. And the ones that remain are essentially flesh-eating zombies.

So we've got little groups of kids set around London, just trying to survive. They go scavenging and thankfully a handful of them are pretty damn smart. (The engineering "emo" pair are my faves of that set.) Then this kid comes around and tells them that everything is awesome and there are hardly any adults by Buckingham Palace. Two grocery stores fairly near each other each harbor a band of kids, so those groups join up and make for the palace. (Except for one PTSD kid who chooses to stay alone and his story is nice and depressing.) The book is about their journey to the palace and what happens there, but it also has chapters following a nine-year-old boy from one of the stores, who was captured earlier the same day the palace boy shows up. He escapes the "grown-ups" and then has plenty of adventures after. I'm skipping loads of details, because I think they need to be read to be experienced.

There are a lot of pretty scary things going on here. The kids have to band together and the older ones have to become adults to protect the youngest. They have to learn how to fight, because the adults keep coming after them, and despite the adults' illness, the kids are handicapped by their youth and weakness compared to the size and strength of the adults. Sometimes if too much time goes by, the adults "pop," which is totally gross, but that doesn't seem to have a strict time limit or anything. You'd think most of them would have popped by now if some did, since this thing hit pretty fast. But even if all the adults were dead, then the kids still have a huge problem on their hands. How in the hell are a bunch of children going to resurrect the world? The oldest are 16! The majority of 16-year-olds don't know that much about a lot of things that are important, like anything medical.

It's a very bleak story. It's like Walking Dead but bleaker, because they've at least got adults and chances are there's someone out there still alive that knows how to do important stuff.

My main struggle is trying not to get attached to anyone. Because it doesn't seem like a good idea.

Definitely a good book, but you have to be in the right mindset for it.