Undead
Zombies, the monster du jour, are sure to win any current battle royal with vampires and werewolves, and this British import is packed with them. When a bus of high-school students on a class trip gets stranded at a snowed-in Scottish rest stop, most of the teens, along with other travelers, turn into the drooling, flesh-eating undead. Only Bobby (aka Roberta), the wisecracking narrator, and three others who fit neatly into stereotypes—slacker, pretty bubblehead, and nerd—are left standing. When McKay sticks to the comic interplay between the foursome, the novel is fun to devour, but when the plot takes a turn at the end into a conspiracy thriller, things begin to fall apart. Clearly the story is meant to be resolved in a sequel. More satiric Shaun of the Dead than dramatic The Walking Dead, this includes plenty of jump-out-of-your-seat moments with unusual venues—the luggage hold of a bus, a Scottish castle with a wine cellar and a dungeon—and should be popular with teens who can’t get enough goose-bump thrills. Grades 7-10. --Karen Cruze