A Review of Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Infinity is a part of the chronicles of nick series and is the first installment. The book follows a boy named Nick Gautier. Nick is a boy who attends a private school, but he can only afford going because he is a scholarship student. Because of the fact that he isn’t as wealthy as the other students he is the subject of a lot of bullying. He is also raised by his mother alone because his father is in jail for murdering a large number of people. He also gets into a lot of trouble so one day when he is waiting outside of the principles office he meets a new student name Nekoda. Later that night on his walk home he is asked by some shady friends to help them “collect a debt” and in return they would pay Nick, so Nick decided to do it because he needed the money to help his mom with the bills, but while he was watching for the cops his friends started to threaten an elderly couple with a gun. Nick attempted to stop them but instead he ended up getting beat up while the elderly couple ran away. This upset Nicks “friends” so after beating him up they were going to shoot him dead but suddenly a man named Kyrian came and took care of the criminals, but not before Nick was shot in the shoulder. Nick awoke in the hosptal with Kyrian and his Mother by his bedside. Kyrian explained what happened to his Mother and offered to pay off the hospital deck in exchange for having Nick work for him as an errand boy. Soon though Nicks life started to take a strange turn as on his drive to school one morning he finds out that school is closed due to a student attacking and eating a part of another students arm. He then spends the day at his friend Bubbas gun and computer school. Bubba is a top of his class MIT graduate who hunts zombies on the weekend and goes muddling on the weekends. But Nick is there with a few friends to find out what's going on but he cant contact his genius friend Madaug for support so he waches the front desk for a few hours when suddenly zombies attack him and he ends up breaking some glass and shooting a portrait of Bubba's momma. After this Nick has to go to Kyrians to work.

While at Kyrians zombies attack Nick again but he is defended by Kyrians housekeeper Rosa when suddenly a flash of light filled the room and all the zombies disappear and are replaced by a man named Acheron. Nick learns while driving in the car with Acheron that Acheron is a god and is 11 thousand years old. After Acheron drops Nick off he is walking to his moms work his school bully Stone, jumps out of an alleyway to attack Nick but Caleb Malphas, the schools star Quarterback, stops Stone. Caleb then convinces Nick and Nicks mom to let Nick go with him to a self defense class at Bubbas. Later when Nick comes back to Bubbas with Caleb, after reaching bubbas they get attacked by more zombies and Caleb suggest that someone might be controlling the zombies and suggest that they go hunt down whoever is responsible for the zombies. So while walking to the downtown square in New Orleans Caleb suggest the group splits up to cover more of the city. While taking a back street that Nick was told to go down he sees a rather spooky house that is infamous for being a murder house and Nick sees a small girl but upon closer inspection the girl attacks Nick and suddenly monsters appear out from the shadows so nick starts getting beat up when suddenly a surge of power goes through Caleb and he is given the strength to beat them but not before being wounded and nicks sees a man calling himself Ambrose and says he is nicks uncle. NIck then passes out after the battle because of a bad wound. After Nick wakes up lateter that night he is greeted to a girl. This girl is Simi. Simi is a strange person and talks in the third person. Nick is attacked by zombies but Simi helps Nick fight them when Caleb suddenly appears and helps them get away back to Bubbas. When they reach Bubbas, Bubba and Madaug and Mark, Bubbas best friend, are in the back room studying Madaugs latest creation being a video game that influences people into not bullying Madaug, at least that was the goal, but instead it turned people into living zombies that were out to kill Madaug! (and Nick for some reason). But while they are solving the problem. A group of zombies shows up and attacks the gang. During this quarrel Nick grabs an electrified and modded (by Bubba) Cow prod.

After zapping a zombie the zombie is returned to being a normal jock and is just confused as to where he is. After finding this out they all get into Bubbas truck and head over to the jail where te kid who attacked the other kid at Nick’s school is being held. Caleb calls a mysterious friend to sneak the cow prod into the prison to help the gang figure out if electricity is the cure. Soon after there friend confirms this and they all head over to Madaugs after getting a sudden phone call that Madaugs house had been broken into and his mom and little brother where missing. After reaching the house they find Madaugs older brother and Madaug runs into the house to find out what's happening. While standing outside Nick sees Ambrose again and this time he disappears before Nick can approach. Meanwhile inside the house Madaug gets a vision of a small lady that tells him to go to the graveyard if he wants to see his brother and Mom ever alive again. Nick and gang are forced to leave after a horde of zombies appears but mark runs into the house too help Madaugs older brother escape. After all getting in the car Nick gets a futuristic vision and sees that Madaug has taken an electric scooter to somewhere he doesn’t think is a good place. But in the middle of Nick telling Bubba to start driving Nick hears Ambrose and starts to talk to him Ambrose then appears and gives him a dagger that can change shape and size at Nicks will. Then they all head back to Bubbas so they can further discuss what's going on and when they get bsck Nick Is called by his mom to get to his moms work or he’ll be grounded so nick showers and runs over to the strip club his mom works at. But after realizing that his mom would be in danger if they didn't get her they sleep dart her and Bubba and Nick get back in the car to head to Kyrians. There they see a group of people gathered outside. While Bubba takes Nicks mom inside to get to a bed that Kyrian offers Nick hears the crowd start talking about the daemons and all that’s been going on then they say they need to split into groups and since Nick is traveling with Caleb a member of the talking gourd of people is put into a group with them. They all then start driving to go find a person who might be behind the regular zombies that have been appearing along with the living zombies. While on the car ride there the kid explains that he and a lot of the people that went to Nicks school were animal shape shifter and could change from their animal form at any time. But on the car ride there something attacks Bubbas car and they are thrown to the side of the road and Bubba is knocked out. While the shape shifter attempts to open the door he says that something is nullifying his powers and Caleb seconds that thought. Then Caleb takes Nick out of the car before it explodes and suddenly flying monkey demons come to attack Caleb and kidnap Nick. Nick awakes in a cell with Madaugs little brother in it. After a short time period a blob like body guard and a small woman come to escort Nick to a different arena like room. As Nick walks into the room he sees all his friends in a cage but knocked out and when he looks to the other side of the room he is horrified to see that there is the vidoe game of Madaugs creation being played on a ginormous screen and he figures out that his friends where in the process of being brainwashed.

The resolution to this story is when Nick thinks everything is back to normal and he is attending school again. In my opinions this book is great, it has everything I want from an action novel about a supernatural world. The pacing is superb for the fact that this series goes by a one story a book premise and it moves at just the right speed for its almost 500 page length. I think that everything is evenly balanced in the character development and the story arc and nothing is spent too much time focused on so that the rest of the book doesn’t suffer. I also love the characters and the glimpse they offer into a southern culture that I am unfamiliar with being a Minnesota resident. The characters are quirky and the way they are written made me genuinely laugh, remember this is a book we are talking about so the fact that it was so vividly written that I was able to hear the jokes in my head says a lot. I also love how the character dynamics work in this book because of how argumentative every character can be with each other because it reminds me of hanging out with my friends. I left the majority of the final 50 pages out because that is the climax and i didnt want to ruin it. So if you want to find out you’ll have to read this thrilling story that left me wanting to read the whole series. While the story might be a little generic the way it is told is unique in my opinion because of the fact that this book appeals to my modern age - raised by the internet way of living and that is so rare to find nowadays in a book let alone a book from 2010. While there are negatives like there are a lot of cliche elements to this book like the character archetypes and story it has a lot of upsides that I think this is a must read for anyone who likes action novels and who’s sense of humor isn’t too serious.

The biggest gripe I had with this book is the way the author writes. What i mean by that is the author seems to constantly need to remind us of each characters personality. Almost every time we see a character after not seeing them for awhile it like we are meeting them all over again and it can be tedious as a reader because its like this book was written for victims of short term memory loss it's almost like every character is over developed, like this book was meant to fish for a movie deal or something. But other than that major flaw I think this book is solid. I would give it a 7 out of 10 personally.