What a perfect book to read around Halloween. Zombies are all the rage these days, but it can be hard to find an original, clever take on zombie apocalypses. My favorite is Max Brook's World War Z, but this one is definitely up there. Carey's post-apocalyptic London is appropriately eerie and shocking. He sets the scene at a military base outside of Beacon, the only civilian city left that is cut off from the world of "hungries." We meet Melanie, an imprisoned child with obvious levels of genius. For a ten-year-old who has known nothing but a cell and the rough handling of Sergeant Parks and his military team, she knows a lot about the world (as it was before the apocalypse). This is thanks to a group of teachers, but mostly her favorite, Miss Justineau. As Melanie begins to uncover truths about the base, her classmates, and herself, things begin to unravel at a rapid pace that had me rapidly turning pages and trying to guess how things would play out. 
 I loved the hungries that Carey created. They were your classic zombies, but with new and interesting tics. They're fast, but only when provoked or when they hear/see something. They're ruthless once they've caught you, as zombies should be. But where other zombie creators often make their zombies mindless beings, there are different levels of hungries in Carey's world, which has to do with the science of his zombie virus. I'll let you discover them for yourself, but let's just say the most terrifying ones come in a surprising form. 
 Highly recommend for fans of The Walking Dead!