Unfed

by Kirsty McKay

Overview

Fresh meat! From a hospital of horrors to a runaway zombie train, it's an all-new onslaught of the slavering undead in the sequel to Kirsty McKay's killer debut!

Just when you think you're out...it's the morning after the night of the return of the living dead. Or something like that. After running/bus-driving/snowboarding for her life alongside rebel Smitty, geeky Pete, and popular Alice, Bobby thought she'd found the antidote to the Carrot Man Veggie Juice that had turned the rest of their classmates into zombies. When Smitty (mmm...nom, nom) got chomped, Bobby pumped a syringe full of it into him herself.But now Bobby's a prisoner in some hospital of horrors, with no clue how she got there. And Smitty is missing. What if he isn't cured after all? Bobby knows she's got to find him, even if it means facing Scotland's hungry hordes -- plus Alice's buckets of snark -- again. And this time, zombies aren't the only evil stressing her out. The brain-dead are bad enough, but how can Bobby stop the big pharma business behind the epidemic? Especially when her own mom works for the company?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545536752
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	08/27/2013
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

KIRSTY McKAY, born in the UK, now lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has written and acted in several children's plays for regional theater. UNFED is the sequel to her debut novel, UNDEAD. Visit her website at www.kirstymckay.com and follow her on Twitter @kirkybean.

Read an Excerpt

From UNFEDThe "wall" is now see-through. Russ moves slowly toward the little monsters and puts a careful hand out. His fingertips find something solid, and immediately the wall turns dark again. We all jump and yell, but he keeps his cool. He reaches out and touches the wall again. The kids are back."Smartglass." Pete emerges from somewhere underneath the desk."A mirror on the outside?" Russ steps toward the monsters. "Look. They can see themselves, not us." He lifts his hand up to where one small girl has her face squished against the glass in a terrible gurning of mushed-up cheek and dribbling blood.I watch as a boy-zom reaches toward the girl's reflection in the mirror, then turns to her and repeats the gesture to her face. Then he runs a clawed hand up through his spiky thatch of hair, watching himself in the mirror. He grabs a clump, wrenches it from his skull, then looks at the tangle of hair and skin in his hand.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for UNDEAD"Fast, furious, freaky, funny, and seriously sick." — CHARLIE HIGSON, author of the ENEMY series"A hilarious and lively mix of cunning, bravery, and tomfoolery...Bobby's narration is spiked with wit and perceptive snarkiness...First-rate fun." — SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL"McKay plays her tale for maximum snark...humor and action keep the pages turning...Blood spurts; entrails drag; body parts shed; hearts (living ones) throb — it's all good, gory fun." — KIRKUS"The typical school-centered zombie story is given a fabulous reboot in McKay's debut novel...The perfect balance of humor and horror...will have readers alternately biting their nails and snorting with laughter...A fun, pulse-pounding addition to the zombie genre." — VOYA"Fun to devour." — BOOKLIST"Loved the black humor. Think SHAUN OF THE DEAD in the Scottish wilderness." — THE BOOKSELLER UK

From the Publisher

12/01/2013
Gr 6 Up—This book picks up six weeks after the final events of Undead (Scholastic, 2012). Roberta, the 15-year-old reluctant but capable heroine, wakes up in a military hospital in Edinburgh, her head shaved and criss-crossed with scars. The hospital is teeming with zombies. In minutes, she is reunited with two of her classmates from the first novel: mean-girl Alice and geeky Pete. Together, they want to rescue their missing pal, Smitty. Told from Bobby's point of view, the story taps into the teen mind-set with acuity. In between fighting matches with hoards of the undead, she and her crew worry about crushes, personal appearances, and relationships. For instance, can Bobby trust the clues left by her mother, who may or may not be dead, and who may or may not be in cahoots with the pharmaceutical company that leaked the zombie virus? Grisly fight scenes, narrow escapes, and encrypted messages play off one another at a don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it pace. In addition to fighting the zombies, the teens stay one step ahead of the government agents who are trying to capture Bobby so they can study her virus-resistant DNA. The intensely gory interactions between the kids and the zombies (including undead cows and one undead goat) are foiled by Bobby's touching and funny soliloquies. This book has it all-action, adventure, suspense, engaging characters, and a smidgen of romance. One whizbang of a read.—Jennifer Prince, Buncombe County Public Libraries, NC

School Library Journal

2013-08-15
The undead are shambling all over Scotland in this bitingly funny sequel to Undead (2012). The last thing Bobby remembers is fleeing the zombie apocalypse in a school bus full of nascent undead. She wakes up in a top-secret medical facility fairly teeming with zoms. With her are snotty Alice and geeky Pete, along with strong and capable Russ, the only survivor from that fateful school bus. Missing is Smitty, the maddening boy she lost her heart to in the first book. Following cryptic clues left in her cellphone by her scientist mother--the one who formulated the zombie-creating concoction in the first place and the person who may have the key to its cure--Bobby, Alice, Pete and Russ break out and flee, hoping to find Smitty and Bobby's mom and, possibly, safety. Punctuated by many zombie battles that have almost a Keystone Kops feel to them for all their undeniable menace, their escape is fueled by desperation and snark. The kids carp at one another constantly (the mutual hostility between Bobby and Alice is particularly fizzy), and Bobby's narration maintains the razor's-edge balance between humor and horror. "Oh, fudmukker," Bobby remarks, as they try to flee Edinburgh by rail. "Zoms on a Train." A gleefully revolting romp, it ends on a cliffhanger; here's hoping it'll be resolved soon. (Horror. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews