Peter StensonRezensionen

Interesting. Disgusting. Intense. Harsh, poetic, and gross. I struggled to understand a meth addict's p.o.v., while during a zombie apocalypse..... Not really sure if I could. I never knew there were so many nicknames for meth. So many ways to take it. I'm a little sorry I read it......it was just the gory traffic accident of an ending I thought it would be. I need to go see some Disney cartoons, now.

What the hell did I just read? Unique take on the 'end of the humans' genre. The zombies are barely visible in this one, but they aren't the point. (Hint: The zombies are never the point.) The idea of being a tweaker for the rest of your life is a fate worse than death or being a zed.

All eighteen-year-olds seem to struggle with issues of identity and belonging, but Mason Hues just might be the most extreme example. When he is first introduced as the narrator in Peter Stenson’s novel Thirty-Seven, he is not even sure which name to use. In fact, Mason began life unnamed until his adoption by an upper-class couple who raised him in a life of privilege. Mason is permanently scarred, however, after one of them repetitively abused him as he entered adolescence. Mason describes how he reinvented himself by running away at fifteen to join a “new family of his own choosing,” – a cult led by a former oncologist whose followers used unnecessary chemotherapy drugs to induce illness. The core tenet of the group (later infamously known as “the Survivors,”) was the belief that experiencing life-endangering sickness can elicit profound truth, connection and insight. Mason is dubbed Thirty-Seven, denoting the order in which he joined the cult and to completely obliterate his past. As he relates his story, Mason often refers to a book written about the cult after a catastrophic event that left him as its sole survivor and witness. Now, he is trying to start fresh once again in anonymity, having been released from a stay at a mental institution. Still struggling against the brainwashing he received, Mason lands a job at a thrift store run by a young woman with scars of her own. He becomes increasingly unsure about his life’s purpose and is tempted to reconstruct another group based on The Survivors’ ideas. This juxtaposition of identities- whether real, self-composed or assigned by others- is treated in a unique way by Stenson in this odd bildungsroman. A thoughtful premise and some unexpected twists make Thirty-Seven an interesting choice for readers who can stomach some darkness and despair. The novel would have greatly benefitted by more editing in terms of its length and grammar, and it appears overly-repetitive at times. The depictions of violence, illness and abuse are fairly graphic and those who could be sensitive to those issues might not want to venture too far into the mind of Mason Hues.

Thanks to Dzanc Books and Edelweiss for an ARC of this title in exchange for an unbiased review.

Imagine a zombie apocalypse where the only survivors are meth addicts and they have to get a regular fix to ward off becoming zombies themselves. Hilariously dark premise and execution.

I won a copy of this for free from a Goodreads giveaway. So Meth Heads and Zombies. Original, quirky, often intense and definitely one you don't want to put down. It's a little insane and lots of fun (and yeah, definitely quite often cringe worthy)It will turn you into a Fiend Fan!

THIS REVIEW FIRST APPEARED ON ONE CURVY BLOGGER

I’ve been interested in Fiend since my pal Tika reviewed the book in late 2014 over on her blog fANGIRL Confessions. I finally picked up a copy on my last adventure to Barns and Noble and I was lucky enough to get it on sale! While I didn’t hate Fiend, it surprised me when I wasn’t amazed by it, either.

The plot and writing woes

For me, the most exciting part of the book happened in the first chapter. It was a The Walking Dead level gore fest that had me begging for more but sadly, it didn’t stay that way. The more I read, the slower it the plot seemed to move. By the middle of the Fiend, I had to force myself to finish. It just wasn’t exciting enough for me.

My biggest issue was the writing. The style in which Stenson delivered Fiend was so completely different from anything I’ve read that it felt disjointed and distracted me from the story. It’s awesome to find an author who has an original idea, but because the book was so out of the box I can’t relate, it kept pulling me out of the book.

The second largest issue I had with Fiend was the plot. To enjoy good end-of-the-world zombie fiction, I need a hell of a lot of world building. I generally expect most of my questions to be answered, but by the end of Fiend, I had more questions than answers. If you’re a nosy reader like I am, this I’m not saying I need to know what caused them, but I need a plausible theory for how they showed up. Was it a virus? The rapture? Contaminated water source? It was so frustrating that my questions went unanswered.

The character’s were… alright.

I love it when my heart rattles against my uvula.

I love it when my vision is a camera shutter.

I love it when I know that someday, I will do great things.

I love it when methamphetamine make things okay.

Fiend is told by Chase Daniels, a druggie who’s only long time relationships are with his best friend and fellow addict, Typewriter, and his drug dealer. The story follows Chase as he and Typewriter dodge the giggling undead —yes, I said giggling zombies— on his journey to save his ex-girlfriend and more importantly, accumulate a large stash of crack to survive the apocalypse. It’s not that I hated Chase, it’s just that I didn’t get him. Or maybe I just don’t get having an addiction so bad, that betraying my loved ones is better than living without…He and the rest of his fluctuating group of druggie survivors didn’t make me feel anything except a pity. My “meh” feelings for the characters probably comes down to my inability to relate. *shrug*

If you love dysfunctional characters, Fiend might be for you.

I’m not sure who would love this book, to be honest. Certainly not hardcore zombie lovers. This book would probably appeal to readers who like a nice dysfunctional anti-hero for their narrator. While my experience with Fiend wasn’t a the best of experiences, I do think other readers could enjoy reading this novel. It just wasn’t for me.½

So Meth Heads and Zombies. Original, quirky, often intense and definitely one you don't want to put down. It's a little insane and lots of fun (and yeah, definitely quite often cringe worthy) It will turn you into a Fiend Fan!

Despite the modest page count and a fascinating premise about what the zombie apocalypse would look like if meth heads were the only survivors – which, I have to say, is a pretty awesome social thought experiment – it still took me a long time to read this book, the reason being I could only take it in small doses on account of how incredibly obnoxious it was.

It wasn’t even so much the nihilistic and transgressive-like style of storytelling, or the fact that the drug-addled characters are so infuriatingly unlikeable down to the very last person. At the end of the day, while being in the mind of a junkie might not be all sunshine and lollipops, I actually thought Peter Stenson did a fantastic job painting a very vivid and realistic perspective.

No, the real reason I had such a hard time is because I’m a big fan of punctuation. Quotation marks are our friends! But anyway, Fiend begs to differ. I can’t say I’m thrilled with the lack of punctuation or the continuous stream-of-consciousness writing style, and yet I’m also not such a stickler for it that I would dismiss the whole book because of it. Did it affect my enjoyment of the novel though? I tried not to let it, but to a degree it did. If anything, it was because trying to read this book for prolonged periods of time would inevitably give me a massive headache.

I’ll give it this, though: at no point did I ever consider throwing in the towel. The story was just too addictive, if you would pardon the borderline tasteless pun. It marries one unpleasant subject (drug abuse) with another (zombies) and the results are pretty interesting in that hideous-but-I-just-can’t-stop-looking way. The end of the world is at hand. Everyone just went to sleep one night and didn’t wake up in the morning, and some of those individuals have reanimated to become the walking dead. For whatever reason, the only survivors are people like Chase Daniels, a long time meth addict. Chase was so high that for days he hadn’t even known the zombocalypse had arrived, and he actually thought his first exposure to it – a little girl in his front yard tearing out the throat of a dog and eating it – was a drug-induced hallucination.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a junkie. I won’t even pretend to know. But just to give you an idea of what we’re dealing with here, Chase and his friends are the kind of people who would sell their own mothers for a hit, so you can only imagine the world we’re left with, with him and his fellow addicts being the only ones left. There’s no trust, no morals, no self-control, and hence no chance in hell of society ever rebuilding. Add to that, the characters discover that continuing to do drugs it the only way to stay alive and keep from turning into the monsters. There you go: survival and self-destruction, two sides of the same coin. Kinda puts an interesting spin on your typical zombie story, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed with the ending. To be fair, given the nature of the story, I would have been surprised if I would have gotten a satisfying conclusion, but it was still very abrupt and left things hanging – and that’s a big pet peeve.

To sum up: fascinating book, offering a different approach on zombies and the end of the world. I found Chase Daniels and his narration intensely off-putting, but I also see that as a testament to the author’s skill to write a believable, meth-addicted anti-hero type protagonist. The only thing that kept me from enjoying this novel more was the writing style (though admittedly it worked very well for the story and character) the ending. I would still heartily recommend this one to zombie fiction enthusiasts and those who are interested in checking out a unique take on the genre.½

This first novel from Peter Stenson, published by Windmill Books, is a gritty, horrific episodic mash-up of gut-munching zombie apocalypse and psyche-annihilating meth-amphetamine addiction. The story centres on a pair of hopeless tweakers, Chase and Typewriter, who're both desperate addicts. Hidden behind their blacked-out windows in speed-induced euphoria the pair spin through the zombie apocalypse, only realising that something's amiss when they see a small girl chewing on the intestines of a dog. The pair flee and journey towards the home of the Albino, the best meth-cook in the State, having worked out that the only survivors of the epidemic are meth-heads – something in the drug making addicts immune to the zombie virus. Teaming-up along the way with other freaked-out tweakers, including Chase's ex-girlfriend and insatiable meth-hoover KK, they form a band of the least well-equipped people to survive the apocalypse and guarantee the future of humanity. Peter Stenson's novel is a strange mix of "Breaking Bad" and "The Walking Dead" and a strange mix of horror pulp thriller and literary allusion. The style is fast and fierce and full of drug underworld slang, with Stenson taking a minimalist approach to dialogue and the normal conventions of punctuation, which gives the narrative a rushing dynamism totally in keeping with the subject matter. The use of speed-induced internal monologues brilliantly illustrates the effects and allure of crystal meth while also building up a picture of how Chase spiralled into the horror and lunacy of addiction. Stenson builds up both a sensitive and ugly backstory using this technique and slides it into the narrative so subtly and cleverly as to be almost unseen. The story is also unsparing in its use of bloody splashes of flesh-eating horror and in its depiction of the thrills, joys, ugliness and sordid hopelessness of the meth-addict lifestyle. The story really flies in its use of tone and language, but Stenson seems to struggle with where he's taking the narrative. The protagonists move from location to location, fend off zombies, argue with each other and simply get high wherever and whenever they can. The ending of the story is a touch abrupt and a touch unsatisfying leaving the story hanging and the final motivations a more than a little unclear. Despite that slightly unsatisfying ending "Fiend" is a great read, full of breakneck pace, inventive language and gritty, grisly tone. It is a great piece of literary apocalyptic horror and one of the best books to have appeared in the recent zombie glut.

This was more of an addiction book than it was a zombie book. There were some good parts, and some interesting characters and plot twists, but it didn't come together at the end. There were all kinds of questions that were left unanswered.

Disaster strikes when overnight everyone in the world transforms into a flesh-eating zombie. The only people who are spared are meth addicts. The book follows the adventures of Chase Daniels as he tries to survive and find new sources of drugs in this dangerous new world.

Fiend does put an original twist on zombie novels, and feels like it captures the mindset of an addict. However, since all the characters are totally self-centered, miserable people I found the book to be interesting, but not really enjoyable.½

Drugs and Zombies. Looks like someone has been watching too much AMC.

But seriously, that's what this book is all about: Drugs and Zombies. A pair of meth addicts, Chase and Typewriter, emerge from an extended binge to find that everyone in the world is a zombie except their fellow tweakers. They embark on a quest of sorts to save Chase's ex-girlfriend and to find some way to survive the nightmare world they've ended up in all while constantly seeking out their next fix.

It's a very interesting take on the zombie concept and it's well-written, fast-paced, and compelling. But most impressively it succeeds at telling a very human tale, a goal most zombie stories aspire to. Chase, the story's narrator, sees in this post-apocalyptic world a chance to make up for the wasted, destructive life he's led by saving his friends. But his addiction continues to exert influence over him and he struggles to suppress his drug-fueled urges. It's a very sad commentary on the human condition and it makes for a great read.

Meth freaks meet the zombie apocalypse! As a matter of fact, the only humans immune to the zombie plague are serious meth users. Told from the point of view of one of them, the novel describes the (largely futile) actions of Chase and his friends to escape the zombie horde and maintain their supply of drugs. Drug addiction is the perfect metaphor here for the zombie plague (or is it the other way around?). The novel is very cinematic in its approach--have films rights been optioned?--and could only have been written by a (recovering) drug addict. Recommended for the non-squeamish.

This is a very quick read, and is almost cinematic in much the same way that John Dies At The End was... its almost like you are watching a movie... I wouldn't be surprised if the author has already optioned it to someone. It is tough to write characters that a reader cares about, despite their being junky asses who do things real junkies would do.

The concept is nice - the people most incapable of dealing with normal society have to somehow deal with a zombie apocalypse. The fact that is set in and around my city (Minneapolis/St Paul) added an extra touch for me as well. I'm getting quite tired of zombies, but this was different enough because of the drug angle that it didn't really feel like it was covering the same territory as the other thousands of zombie novels out there.

When they first see the little girl in the umbrella socks devouring a rottweiler, Chase Daniels and Typewriter John figure they are just having a bad trip and dismiss the horrible vision. They can no longer ignore it when it starts chasing after them, causing Type to kill the little monster. Chase freaks out, convinced they are going to be thrown in jail, but the streets are suspiciously empty. They finally realize what happened: the zombie apocalypse has finally happened. So of course these two worry about their meth habit before anything else and go find the Albino, their meth supplier. Through some dubious reasoning, Chase, John, the Albino, and Chase's ex KK discover that the meth is keeping them from being zombies. Together they have to ration the meth, make more, and fight off zombies and other humans in order to survive.

Fiend isn't the typical zombie novel and Chase is not a typical hero. He's kind of a fuck-up who has allowed meth to drive away his family, his friends, and his girlfriend. He and Typewriter didn't even realize the zombie apocalypse was going on because they were on a week long binge. Meth colors his life and ties everything together. The arrival of zombies doesn't change this and even exacerbates it after they discover the key to staying human and alive is in meth. The only real change the new zombified world brings is getting rid of law and creating a legitimate reason to stay on the drug. Because of Chase's dependence, he doesn't always think clearly or makes decisions based on his own needs and addictions rather than what would actually benefit everyone. He can get downright annoying and isn't even particularly likeable, but this is the hero we have.

The narrative is in the first person and follows Chase's weird stream of consciousness, going backward and forward in time and reflecting his bipolar-like moods as he goes from the joy of being high to the paranoia when drugs run low to the hell of craving more and everything in between. The dialog has no quotation marks, making it hard to tell who is speaking for even if Chase is thinking or talking aloud. It succeeds in making the reader feel off balance, a little confused, and a taste of how an altered state would feel. The descriptions are tactile, disgusting, and darkly comical from the zombies to the disturbing habits of the addicts.

As much as I liked the concept, the characters are painfully annoying. They are all drug addicts who one moment are creating a drug fueled utopia and the next stabbing each other in the back. It's realistic and accurate, but they just whined about their lives and then continually made the same bad decisions that ruined their lives in the first place. Every character is greedy and selfish, ready to screw each other over for a hit. I grew tired to them and they grated on nerves over the course of the novel. The only flaw I saw in the writing was the ridiculously abrupt ending. I turned the page expecting a new chapter and found it blank.

This novel has zombies, but the focus is on drug addiction. The zombies are slightly different because they laugh instead of moan, which is creep. They provided motivation for the story and drove the plot forward, but they aren't what makes the novel special. The gore in the novel is pretty spectacular and described in vivid detail. I would recommend this more for people into drug fiction rather than zombie books, but adventurous zombie fans might enjoy it.

Zombies, meth addicts, end of the world... eh. Why did I think I would enjoy this book? It was a bit too gritty for me. The gross-out imagery overpowered the story, which otherwise I guess was ok. This book has its audience, but I'm not in it.

So, this was a major departure from the book I finished reading earlier the same day I started Fiend. The previous book (Little Joe) was generally a wholesome, lazy summer's day meandering through a brief period in the life of a young boy in rural America during WWII.

Fiend - well, there wasn't anything wholesome about it and the body count was considerably higher than any war's casualties, even if it wasn't all detailed.

Normally, I'm put off by profanity getting dropped every couple words - I generally feel like it's the writer just being lazy, or they don't have the talent to find the right words. In Stenson's case, he has the talent and the right words just happen to be curses...lots and lots of curses.

Still, it was right for the book. I'd think anyone comfortable with Chuck Palahniuk's works would be fine with Stenson's subject matter and language, but others might find the constant drug use, gore and cursing hard to handle.

That being said, I enjoyed the book. Much like the series "The Walking Dead," zombies play a secondary role, with the key story being the people and their interaction with each other. The undead are there to keep things moving along. In fact, this book probably could have worked almost as well without zombies. But Stenson did a great job and in the end, the reader has quite a lot to think about regarding the real fiend.½

I love a good zombie novel, so this seemed right up my alley, but I must admit, I felt a little uncertain going in. The premise seemed, well, a bit gimmicky, as if perhaps the author emerged from a marathon of AMC's greatest hits thinking, "Hey, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad are both massively popular shows. If you could somehow combine those two, you could make a mint. Wait, I've got it! A novel about meth addicts during the zombie apocalypse!" For all I know, maybe that was in fact Stenson's thinking, although the author bio on the dust jacket says he is himself a recovering meth addict, so more likely he's just writing what he knows. Either way, it doesn't matter, because it works.

This is, to begin with, a pretty solid zombie apocalypse novel: suspenseful in the all the right places, occasionally moving, and appropriately bleak. It puts a few interesting original spins on the usual zombie tropes, too. Nothing hugely groundbreaking, but it's enough to keep it from feeling by-the-numbers, which is nice. But it's also an effective novel about drugs. The main character is an interesting mixture of decent, intelligent, caring human being and messed-up, sell-your-grandmother-for-a-hit junkie loser, and the conflict between those two sides of him is really what's at the book's heart. Sometimes painfully so, but that's no bad thing.

Basically, turns out it was right up my alley, after all.

Since the author of this book is a recovering meth addict who has been sober for ten years, I’m pretty sure the descriptions of the things people will do to obtain a fix and of the things they do and say while under the influence of the drug of choice must be accurate. The emotion this evokes in me is sadness. What a waste of a potentially meaningful life.

The story kept me interested to a point. There was too much repetition for my taste, which is why I only gave it three and a half stars. It probably would have been a four-star book, otherwise. You only need a limited number of descriptions of Zombies and shooting meth.

The author certainly knows how to paint word pictures. I could almost see one of the characters picking a scab on his face until it bled. Reading about the smells of unwashed bodies, dirty mattresses and fetid breath was not a nice experience.

The book is riddled with obscenities and even the sex scenes make one feel dirty – not that you should expect anything different concerning a book of this type.

I didn’t really like any of the characters, except maybe for Maddie. If you read the book, you’ll know who he is. If you don’t read the book, it doesn’t matter.

I never did know if Chase, the narrator, was on a hell of a trip or if the Zombies were real. I’m still wondering and am also still wondering about the ending. There are several possibilities. I like books that leave a little to the imagination, but in this case it felt as if the author just got tired of writing and quit.

This book can be read in a day, but be prepared to feel sick before you start it. You’ll learn a few things, such as Zombies don’t really behave the way old movies depicted them. Seriously, reading it was so far out of my range of knowledge that it was worth the time spent on it.½

This was the second book out of four books i read this week that just didn't gel with me. For me this book would have been better as a short story. A whole book about meth junkies facing zombies, got very old very quick, with pointless dialogue repeated over and over. I hope the author's next book is better.

This review and more can my found on my blog: The Muses Circle

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My Review: Unless you've been living under a rock, zombies have made a comeback in popularity. They are everywhere-- in books, at the movies, and on television and they are here to stay...at least for a little while. And with this influx of zombie mania comes those individuals who just want to jump on the bandwagon to make a quick buck. The hard part is to weed through the coal to find the hidden gem. FIEND by Peter Stenson is one of those gems, a novel that borrows bits and pieces from material of the past (such as Shaun of the Dead) to give us that familiar feel yet somehow is able to maintain a sense of originality. Strangely enough, as I sit here and attach a zombie label to this book, there is a hesitation. One can argue that FIEND is more a story about addiction that just so happens to have zombies in it (I made a similar comment awhile back when I reviewed another "zombie" novel called This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers). Think Trainspotting meets Shaun of the Dead. And let's not forget there is a love story here as well. Because FIEND can fall into more than one category, it was a little challenging for me to review. Hopefully my analysis below makes sense and doesn't come out a mess.

Here is what I liked about FIEND. The story takes place within the course of a week. Instead of chapters, each section is broken up by a day of the week. Combined with Chase's (our main character) first person narration, it was a very quick read and gave it a journal like feel.

To add to Stenson's unique style of writing is his imaginative use of figures of speech, in particular similes, and sensory details. Here are a couple of examples:

"Blood spouting like Old Faithful."

"She pulls at the intestines like saltwater taffy."

"She's still there and her dress isn't a Jackson Pollock anymore, just red. So's her hair."

"I turn to see Typewriter at the top of the stairs and then look back to the girl sitting there like a used tampon."

If you haven't figured it out yet, let me clarify. This novel is not for the faint of heart or for those who are easily offended due to offensive language. The story and images the author creates with words are raw and dirty. Some parts are so vivid that I seriously felt sick to my stomach at times, and I'm not even talking about blood and guts. I'm talking about the effects of being a hardcore meth addict and the way Stenson uses the senses to describe these habits, the picking of scabs, their bodies and hair greasy and filthy because they haven't bathed in days (and that's before the zombies make an appearance), smelling like "period blood". Hey, his words, not mine!

What I really liked about FIEND and what makes this novel stand out is its unlikely hero, or I should say antihero. Chase is a meth addict and what I like even more is that Stenson didn't make him a stereotypical addict. Most people assume that if a person is on drugs it's because they had a shitty childhood, come from an abusive home, or maybe their parents battled addiction and they are just a product of their environment. But we rarely get to see the other side. As the story unfolds, Chase reveals that his family had money. His parents loved and supported him and did everything within their power to help him get clean. While I did sympathize with him at different parts in the story, I found it harder to find sympathy for a person who had a pretty decent life but pissed it all away because he wanted to rebel as a teenager. And even Chase felt shame at times because of this very fact.

Stenson also interjects well-paced humor throughout FIEND and has created quite a few interesting characters. Chase's best friend is nicknamed Typewriter and he just so happens to be the only fat meth addict that he knows. There are quite a few cinematically funny (at the same time nail-biting) moments when zombies are bearing down on them, Type gets physically stuck, and Chase has to help him out. Yet just when you think Stenson has stereotyped him as the fat, wimpy best friend that is scared of his own shadow, Type does something courageous. He's the one who teaches Chase how to shoot a gun. He's the one who drives them out of more than one sticky situation and waits for Chase even when zombies are snapping at their heals. But if I had to pick a favorite character, it must be the Albino, Chase and Typewriter's meth cook. Yes, I said THE Albino because that is how he prefers to be addressed. Not only is he one of the most paranoid, smartest, and eccentric of the bunch (he's the only one who prepared years in advance for a zombie apocalypse), he also serves as the comic relief in the story. I'm not going to give you any examples since the majority of his comments are quite vulgar and I don't want to offend anybody (which really makes no sense if you plan to read this book, but whatever), suffice it to say that THE Albino is one character you will not soon forget.

I don't want to get into too many details about the zombies themselves as I don't want to spoil everything, but I do like that Stenson tries to inject some unique qualities. The one thing I will say is that they...chuckle or...giggle instead of the moaning we are used to. This is why Chase and his little posse call them "Chucks". It may sound silly but imagine a little girl covered in blood and dog intestines coming at you while giggling. Creepy, right? 'Nuff said.

Another thing that I found interesting and probably is the most important aspect of the novel is the philosophical questions that Chase ponders throughout the story. For example, Dead vs. Undead. Aren't they already dead, living that kind of lifestyle? What makes them any better than zombies? At first I didn't quite get it because even though he is an addict, how can you compare a living, breathing human being to a zombie? But oh was I wrong. Just when I started to like Chase, there would be a flashback scene or a part where he remembers something horrifying that he did in the past in order to get high. And let me not even get started with some of the things he does and choices he makes throughout the novel that shocked and disgusted me. But that is what I think the point of the story is. How far will an addict go to get their next fix? What this story left me asking is this: are they trying to survive the apocalypse or are they doing it for their next fix?

So here is what I had issues with. There were a few minor things that I still feel torn about and it really all depends on how you look at it and what the author was actually trying to convey. While I did like Stenson's unique writing style, it took some time getting used to. As I stated above, it is written in first person narration but here is the problem: there are no quotation marks used with the dialogue. A part of me liked the unstructured format because it made me feel like I was reading Chase's personal journal. But because no quotations were used with the dialogue, there were times when someone was speaking or multiple people were having conversations around Chase and I couldn't figure out right who was saying what. I had to stop occasionally and reread to figure it out. At times even Chase's thoughts got jumbled up when other people were talking. Thankfully, Stenson gave each of his characters distinct voices, so it wasn't too hard to figure out. But confusion did happen and who wants to get pulled out of a story because they have to stop and reread a section since they can't figure out who said what?

It probably is no surprise that characters start to be picked off towards the end. I really can't get into too much detail here because I don't want to spoil anything. But my issue lies with the hot and cold feelings I kept getting with certain characters. There are times throughout the story where I felt I had a good sense of the type of characters I was reading about. But then they would do something that seemed way out of character. At one point I got so angry that I wrote a list of things I wanted to call the author out on but then I started to wonder. Is it the addiction that caused these characters to do random things that were shocking and unexpected? I'm still torn on this one.

My last issue is the way FIEND ends. I would have to agree with other reviewers that it was almost as if Stenson got tired of his own characters and just walked away. It ends so abruptly that I thought the galley I had received was an unfinished draft. But no, it's the way the story ends. Sometimes ambiguous endings are cool and thought provoking. But I fail to see the ambiguity. I was at first extremely distraught, and felt like I had invested my time yet was rewarded with no type of closure. But again I am torn because...I have this feeling that...this is not the end. I won't say any more but after I had some time to calm down and think, I do see the potential for a sequel. I can only hope that is why Stenson ended things the way he did.

Some may argue that FIEND by Peter Stenson is not a zombie book but rather a story about addiction that just so happens to have zombies in it. I can see this novel appealing to those who are interested in learning or reading about meth addiction. Also, if you are like me, FIEND may appeal to those zombie fans that are looking for something different, a new way of looking at things, a fresh pair of eyes to see a zombie apocalypse through. However, if you like zombie novels that reveal the who, what, where, and how-- how they turned into zombies, what caused it, where is the cure--you may be disappointed. Because none of these issues are the focal point of this story. The only thing that is figured out rather quickly is how to prolong NOT turning into a zombie...the rest I will leave for you to figure out. But I will give you a hint. If you've had the chance to see the movie version of World War Z, then you know it's not so much about finding the cure, but something that can buy them time. But these...revelations that give Chase in FIEND and Brad Pitt's character in World War Z time are equally as dangerous and life threatening. But hey, comparing FIEND and WWZ is a whole different can of worms better explored another day.

Mia @ The Muses Circle

I cannot stop raving to friends about how much I loved this book. I really should take the time to give a decent review, but I also don't want to write a review filled with spoilers, because that's no fun. Suffice it say that just comparing it to the TV shows "Walking Dead" and "Breaking Bad" do not do it justice. The zombie apocalypse background serves surprising well for this harsh story of addiction. The reader knows that things will not end well for these characters, because things never do end well for meth addicts, whether they are the last humans alive or not.

I definitely plan on making Fiend my featured staff pick upon it's release, in addition to buying my own hardcover first edition.

I had many favorite quotes from this book, but unfortunately, since I read the ARC, I can't publish them yet. That's one of the reasons this book held up so far in my mind--because the author's language is, yes, that of a meth head at times (as it should be considering that's what the characters are) but these characters make choices which involve childhood memories, "why am I even here?" pity parties, and of course, the godforsaken trembling questions of someone who is about to step out into no man's land. That is, the land between them and the Chucks (the name for the zombies).

But I can't say I particularly liked the characters. Any of the characters, really. OK, I take that back. I liked one. And we all know what usually happens to that one character you actually end up mildly being able to stand. But perhaps that was the point. Probably, though, I'm wrong.

I enjoyed the story. What can I say--I'm all for zombies, and this book mapped out a different perspective on zombies than the norm. However, there were times when I just couldn't get into the story and other times when I let out a, "yuchhh" at how cliche parts of it were.

I did love the ending, though.