This is another book I read as part of the Horror Writer’s Association Summer Scares reading list. Truth be told, this is probably the book I was looking forward to most because the title, cover, and description are off-the-wall bonkers. Simply put, this looked like the literary version of the straight-to-DVD horror I frequently sampled during my tenure working at Hollywood Video (RIP).

Diving in, I was a little surprised that the pacing was a bit slow at the start. At 272 pages, I expected to jump right into the action. It was only later in the book I realized how much I benefitted from getting to know Teddy and Carl. In the afterword, Brian Keene says he didn’t want another 30 year action hero playing protagonist, so we are treated to two older gentlemen whose back-and-forth interactions make for compelling characterization.

My favorite part was the second act, spent in a flooded Baltimore, with a group of survivors battling an “evil” group of survivors a la the walking dead (pre-walking dead). This storyline transitions to avid monster mayhem, with some surprises that the reader, expecting giant carnivorous worms and giant carnivorous worms only, will not see coming.
If you see the title and cover and think “hey, this might be fun”, it will be. I ended up reading the final 2/3’s of the book in one sitting because I was completely and utterly unable to put it down. I hope if this sounds like your thing, you’ll check it out, and I hope you’ll have as much fun as I did.