The Dead by Charlie Higson is the second compelling novel in The Enemy series, which revolves around a disease that has spread across the world, affecting everyone over the age of fourteen. It plays off a year before we pick up from The Enemy, and follows a whole different group of kids from a posh boarding school. Here we meet Jack, Ed, Bam, Wiki, Arthur, Matt and Archie … However, all is not as great as it appears. Once again these kids have to kill off grown-ups in order to survive, and they lose a lot of people on their way to somewhere safe.
They meet Greg, an adult that’s seemingly unaffected by the disease, his son Liam, and a group on a bus that’s travelling towards London. Unfortunately, there are a lot of secrets on that bus and the boys aren’t feeling that great about their driver.
Once they do arrive in London though, they make their way to the Imperial War Museum where they meet up with Jordan, DogNut and a group of guys who aren’t exactly keen on their arrival, but doesn’t have the heart to send them away either. After a while, David and his group even make an appearance, which is good, because it shows that David’s been nuts all along …
It’s one big battle after the other. It’s survival of the fittest. Its death and destruction, and all kinds of hell on Earth; Matt and his group of religious nut-heads aren’t making it any easier either. Meanwhile, a fire rages through South London, which makes survival almost impossible.
The Dead is a fantastic, gripping read and will keep you entertained from beginning to end. It’s a bit gory for kids, but essentially this is a horror novel for young adults. Don’t let that statement deter you from reading it though, because as far as zombie novels are concerned, this is one of the best series’ I’ve read. The characters that really grew on me were Ed and Wiki. I love Wiki, he’s so knowledgeable. While Ed shows a lot of character growth throughout the novel. Of course, Jordan’s an intriguing guy too. However, I would like to see just how the story will play out with Matt and his wacky prophecies in the next book.
The Enemy series by Charlie Higson (so far) is definitely worth a read. I wouldn’t give these books to kids under the age of 15, unless they are true horror aficionados and love watching The Walking Dead or reading way above their reading level, but for teenagers that love a good scare these books are fantastic gifts.
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I thought it was kind of slow. I did like how some things from the first book connected at the end of the 2nd. ( )

Natasha and I are reading the series together

Library copy ( )

The Dead by: Charlie Higson
It's kids V.S zombies and no one is playing nice. I liked this book because it's filled with nail biting action scenes, I would not recommend this book to squeamish people because of the gore. ( )

When a plague turns anyone over the age of sixteen into flesh-craving monsters, a group of teenagers escape from their infested high school and head for London with the hopes of finding a safe haven there.