In short: The End Games by T. Michael Martin was an exciting post-apocalyptic zombie novel with a wonderful sibling relationship at its heart. 
 The End Games was one of my most anticipated reads of 2013. Everything about it screamed that it was a "me" book - the male protagonist, the focus on a non-romantic relationship, the fighting of zombies. And as I expected, The End Games was a book that I ended up enjoying a lot. 17-year-old Michael and 5-year-old Patrick are brothers and video gamers who are fighting their way through zombie hordes to get to the safe zone and The End of the Game. The End Games was a surprisingly insightful post-apocalyptic zombie book with plenty of scary, gory, and heart-pounding action scenes. More importantly though, it had a wonderful display of sibling love that was quite lovely. 
 I can't say that this post-apocalyptic zombie book is particularly groundbreaking in its genre, but The End Games did provide me with enough originality to keep my interest. The zombies in The End Games repeat back to you anything you say to them, earning them the nickname "Bellows". I quite liked this as it added a creep factor, but was also humourous at times. Something that wasn't at all funny about these zombies, however, was their ability to adapt and become savvier over time. Over the course of The End Games, the zombies become progressively harder to defeat and this added a lot of thrilling tension. 
 The best part of The End Games for me was definitely the display of sibling love between Michael and Patrick. There is some romance in The End Games, as well, but the main focus is on the familial relationship and I can't begin to describe how nice and refreshing this was, as it is something of a rarity in YA these days. Michael's nurturing and protectiveness of Patrick was so wonderful to see. I loved their bond and I loved the insight I gained from their relationship. 
 The stylized writing is the one thing I have mixed feelings about. Sometimes the writing was striking; there were several unique turns of phrase that added some interest to debut author's T. Michael Martin's prose. I really liked how the style of writing gave a "voice" to Michael's character. Other times, I found the prose to be too harsh and jarring. It didn't always flow very nicely and thus was sometimes distracting and confusing. It could very well just be me and my personal preference though; others may not be so bothered by the writing. 
 Overall, The End Games was an exciting post-apocalyptic zombie book with an impressively emotional sibling bond at its core. Though the writing may not have always clicked with me, it is evident that T. Michael Martin is an authentic new talent and one to watch. The End Games is a standalone (win!). I would recommend The End Games to zombie-lovers in need of some emotional depth in addition to the gore.