The Enemy - Charlie Higson

I wanted to quickly let you know that I'm alive and the internet is working fine (well, for me, anyway) so I'll be around. My flatmates are awesome and my room is bigger than my one at home. It's going to be a good year.

The Enemy - Charlie Higson

Pages: 407

Publisher: Puffin/Penguin
Release Date: 3rd June 2010

Other Titles in this Series: The Dead

When the sickness came, ever parent, police officer, politician - every adult - fell ill. The lucky ones died. The others are crazed, confused and hungry.

Only children under fourteen remain, and they’re fighting to survive.

Now there are rumours of a safe place to hide. And so a gang of children begin their quest across London, where all through the city - down alleyways, in deserted houses, underground - the grown-ups lie in wait.

But can they make it there - alive?

The Enemy is a heart-stopping novel filled with page after page of murder, fighting and rotting zombies.

I’m not usually a huge a horror fan, but this book is the perfect antidote tp contrite, sappy paranormal romances. The descriptions of the extremely gross grown-ups were graphic and gory from the very beginning: “The skin blackened, shrivelled and split, the overripe flesh inside squeezing out. His insides had turned to mush.”* There are some really disgusting passages in this book.

Unlike most post-apocalyptic novels, The Enemy doesn’t start at the beginning of the change, but instead we join the Waitrose crew about a year after what they call the disaster began. I liked this because at this point the kids were having to fight harder to survive in a world that is falling apart around them. It actually quite reminded me of the later books in Michael Grant’s Gone series, especially when you also consider the age of fourteen being the cut-off for the disease.

But for me, all of these things would mean very little without a fantastic cast of characters. And Charlie Higson’s characters are definitely that. My favourite is Sam. He’s so young, only nine, but so fierce and brave and doggedly determined to survive things that you couldn’t even begin to imagine. But I also loved The Kid who’s funny turns of phrase butchered the English language and Blue with his very surprising revelations about his past that he confided in Maxie. The only characters that I really didn’t like were brash and bloodthirsty Archilleus and crazed, power-hungry David.

The Enemy is a fantastic novel that’ll sate the thirsts of both boy and girl horror fans. And I’m so glad that I’ve already got my copy of The Dead!

* The Enemy, Charlie Higson page 6 (Puffin/Penguin UK) 2009

For my 2010 100+ Reading Challenge

Sophie