Sick

September 16, 2013
In an exciting take on the zombie novel, Leveen (manicpixiedreamgirl) shifts to horror while maintaining his trademark complex relationships and character-driven storytelling. High school senior Brian is a smart kid, but generally a delinquent, mostly hanging around with his obnoxious punk buddy Chad and goofing around at school. While in their theater tech class, a mutated friend attacks and kills a number of students, and the survivors barricade themselves in the theater, where they witness former friends and others rampaging and attacking the rest of campus. The core of the story is a standard zombie survival tale with vicious attacks, internal conflicts, and escape attempts, all with the requisite attrition. But Leveen spends enough time developing his cast—including take-charge student Jaime; Brian’s cancer-survivor sister, Kenzie; and his anxiety-prone ex, Laura—and the mutation itself (a virulent form of arthritis) to keep things entertaining even when readers are anticipating certain plot points. There’s enough gore to bother more timid readers (bones are often torn in two), but nothing beyond what’s expected from the genre. Ages 14–up. Agent: Jennifer Mattson, Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

September 15, 2013
Zombie virus? Check! Locked high school? Check! Brian is a class-cutting, fence-hopping high school senior whose best friend, Chad, has a blue mohawk. They don't fit in with the drama kids in seventh-period stagecraft class, which they take for the easy A. By the end of the period, a horrible, cannibalism-inducing virus has spread through the student body. The class barely manages to barricade part of the theater building--a setting Leveen uses to good effect. They use Brian's smuggled cellphone to hear scant and ominous information from outside the school's locked gate. Although Brian's carved out temporary safety for their small group, Brian's younger sister and his ex-girlfriend (with whom he might be on the verge of reuniting) are somewhere in the school. The diverse cast negotiates group management, plans rescue missions, and struggles to decide between waiting for a rescue that might not come or braving the killing field to try to climb the fence. Leveen keeps his story straightforward and fast-paced, with no padding but plenty of gore and deadly peril. It's much faster than its zombie-peer novels but (aside from a slight spin on the virus' workings) solidly performs in the genre instead of innovating. Between the pacing and the heroes' salty, blue language (full of lovingly creative, genital-inspired insults), reluctant readers who love zombies will devour it, right up to the abrupt end. (Horror. 14-18)

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August 1, 2013
Grades 9-12 High school is full of monsters. With a tagline like that it's easy to guess where the zombie metaphor lives in Leveen's first foray into horror. In the diverse, riot-prone, gang-dominated halls of Phoenix Metro High School, it's not that hard to see how a zombie outbreak might begin without much fanfare. For Brian, a senior, the only people who matter are his friends; his sister, Mackenzie; and his ex, Laura. When Brian finds himself holed up in the school's theater department while ravenous, geode-encrusted infected students run amok, killing or infecting everyone in sight, he, with the aid of his best friend and some drama kids, attempts an intense rescue operation for Mackenzie and Laura. The gore and action will leave enthralled readers thrilled and then sated with each kill on either side. However, Leveen's violent romp isn't without conscience. Community, humanity, and mortality all come under the microscope in this surprisingly earnest effort.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2014
Gem-crusted zombie hordes ravage a racially charged Phoenix high school in Leveen's latest novel, a machismo-driven bloody boyhood fantasy. Trapped inside the drama department with other survivors, troublemaker-turned-hero Brian sets out to rescue his neurotic ex-girlfriend. Characters are, at times, unconvincingly oblivious, at other times, unconvincingly astute. Jerky pacing and overused crass teen-speak severely disrupt this undead romp.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)