{"id":677,"date":"2014-07-23T01:17:36","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T01:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/?p=677"},"modified":"2014-06-30T01:19:55","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T01:19:55","slug":"review-zombie-youth-book-1-playground-politics-by-h-d-goodhue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/?p=677","title":{"rendered":"Review: Zombie Youth: Book 1: Playground Politics by H.D. Goodhue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/zombieyouth.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-678\" alt=\"zombieyouth\" src=\"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/zombieyouth.jpg\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>At this point, zombie literature has moved from cool reboot, to bona-fide horror category, to glutted genre. In fact, I\u2019m pretty sure enough nagging doubt has been cleverly addressed by authors that we are convinced that some virus is, in fact, out there, and it\u2019s only a question of when the dead will rise and eat us.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Can readers tolerate one more book on the subject? Yes, we can, if it\u2019s a good one.\u00a0<i>Zombie Youth: Playground Politics<\/i>\u00a0is the first in a new Young Adult series that successfully strains the curd from the milk-toast avalanche of zombie lit and makes a nice, stinky cheese from it. Goodhue\u2019s take on his subject twists it just enough to set the work apart. In a super-creepy way, he makes the end of days even more likely&#8211;almost logical. All we have to know to enjoy and agree with Goodhue\u2019s view is the established Z-lore&#8211;a rampant, mutated virus begins the trouble, the infected will stop at nothing to tear the flesh from the bones of the living, and your group has to fortify and hunker-down. But in this case, additional scary mutations and a bit of biblical history expand the story and significantly change the game.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Goodhue\u2019s courageous depiction of a hostile faction of live religious zealots adds a bold dimension that engages a whole new set of philosophical and tactical scenarios, and he\u2019s on the right track to convince us. Chances are, we will be fighting each other in the end zone, since we are already fighting each other in the \u201creal\u201d world. Whichever group harnesses the undead will gain a huge advantage over those who merely hide out, brain-smash one monster at a time, and scavenge supplies.<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Goodhue\u2019s voice and style are flawlessly aimed at teen readers, so long as those readers can tolerate graphically described visceral gore. Fortunately, much of the gross stuff is tempered by wry humor that lifts the whole book onto a higher level, nearly to adult cross-over. There is just enough romance to make the story realistic without burdening readers with actual sexual tension or scenario, and thankfully, there are few or no drug references. Also a bonus is that adults are kept right where they should be in a Young Adult work: useful and supportive, but subordinate to the real heroes. The characters are interesting and, though typical, are written with depth and individuality.\u00a0<i>Zombie Youth<\/i>\u00a0promises a strong, likable, and varied group of believable players for horror fans to follow through the adventures of the inevitable post-apocalypse. Highly recommended for ages 14 and up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Contains: Graphic zombie gore, profanity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Reviewed by: Sheila Shedd<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At this point, zombie literature has moved from cool reboot, to bona-fide horror category, to glutted genre. In fact, I\u2019m pretty sure enough nagging doubt has been cleverly addressed by authors that we are convinced that some virus is, in fact, out there, and it\u2019s only a question of when the dead will rise and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,20,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-ya-books","category-zombies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Eu9f-aV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":679,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}