What kid wouldn’t love to whack some zombies? Slaughter some bumbling, disintegrating bodies with gnashing teeth? Kill them before they kill you?
Benny Imura has absolutely no interest. But in his post-apocalyptic Californian community, Benny will lose half his rations if he does not find a job by the time he turns 15, so he has no choice but to become an apprentice to his lame zom-slaughtering brother Tom and to follow him into the Rot & Ruin—the world outside the fences. The zombie-covered fields of America reveal to Benny a world without morality and without humanity, even among the living.
Jonathan Maberry’s Rot & Ruin melds the entertainment of a zombie thriller with an examination of the roots of anger and the value of human life. When the dead rise, it is easy to find sport in whacking a former mailman or two. But Benny quickly discovers that the living dead were once simply living, and there are things far more evil in the world than a shuffling mob of zoms. (Review from BookPage)