The Dead by Charlie Higson
This is the second book in The Enemy Series, and is a prequel to the first. At the very beginning, you get a look at how kids reacted to the disease before the power went out, before the internet was down, when things were still relatively normal and only a few grown-ups were sick. From there it moves to an all boys boarding school where the teacher who had been helping the boys is now who they have to fight.
The rest of the book follows this group of boys while they try to find somewhere safe to live, or at least survive. They come across several groups of other kids who are doing their best with what they have, but sometimes end up having to trust the wrong people in order to survive to see the next day.
Since this book starts a year before The Enemy begins and in a different part of the area surrounding London, we don’t see any of the characters from the first book. Well, that’s not exactly true. At the very end, we do get to briefly see an encounter that happened in The Enemy from the other end, and there are some characters that show up who are in The Enemy and it gives us a brief glimpse of how they got where they were in the first book.
It was a good read, but it really was quite similar to the first book in that we followed a group of kids through the streets of England as they tried to get to somewhere safe. One difference is that these kids didn’t really have a set destination in mind, they just found themselves headed to London, unable to turn back safely.
One interesting thing about this book is that, since it takes place so soon after the disease has really taken over, there are some adults who aren’t sick yet, and so we get to see how the kids deal with those adults as they’re trying to survive. We also get another theory about the sickness and why the children aren’t susceptible to it, and why the diseased adults are so hell bent on eating them. And let me tell you, the theory is good, but the way that Higson showed evidence that supports the theory in reference to one of the not-yet-diseased adults that the kids meet is so well done that I had to put the book down for a moment and just appreciate his talent.
Overall, I definitely give the book a 9.5/10. I would have liked to see something slightly more different than the first book, but it was still a really good book and I have the third book right here to start as soon as this post is scheduled.
Read on!
Molly
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