The Enemy (The Enemy #1) by Charlie Higson
Rating: [rating=5]
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The Enemy by Charlie Higson[/caption]It took me awhile to make friends with The Enemy. The winding tale of a group of London kids trying to survive in a world where all the adults have turned into kid-eating monsters had a great concept, but it felt like sitting down to dinner at a restaurant with excellent food but terribly slow service. The main course was great, but it took waaaay too long to get there.
It’s been about a year since the sickness infected all people older than 14, and some of the few surviving children – those that haven’t already been killed by the grown-ups – have holed up in makeshift fortresses, scavenging for food and simply trying to stay alive. Although they don’t have any formal hierarchy, Arran and Maxie act as leaders for the Waitrose crew. Blue and Whitney lead the Morrison crew.
A kid name Jester shows up, representing another group of kids living in Buckingham Palace. Jester tells them there is plenty of food, security and room for more kids and asks them to relocate. It sounds almost too good to be true. Is it?
Taking a chance, the kids make their way across a dangerous city in hopes of a better life.
The Good:
The second half of the book. Things really started picking up after the painful first half. Sam’s adventure became exciting and, once the kids arrived at Buckingham Palace, there were far more surprises and interesting plot points that could actually be developed – not just a long, repetitive series of skirmishes. Although I have no idea if the author intended this, I saw some fascinating real-life political history connotations.
The epidemic explanations. Jester brought up an interesting thought during some hypothesizing of what caused the outbreak – instead of something beginning to happen that caused the sickness, something stopped happening that caused people to start getting sick. I’ve never thought of zombie-esque scenarios like that. I didn't understand, however, how none of the kids had turned 15 since the grown-ups started turning to see if they would turn or not. You’d think with 50-some kids at least one of them would’ve had a 15th birthday sometime in the year.
Sam. I quite enjoyed Sam. His plotline was always pretty interesting and he was maybe the only character that had been really explored. For the smallest, Sam was the bravest.
The ending. Callum was pointless, but the perspective changing from the kids to the grown-ups sounded promising. I’d like to hear their side of the story.
The Bad:
Writing style. My hostility toward the book began within the first two pages, during the description of Sam Small. “Sam wasn’t the youngest of the group, but he was the smallest. That’s why they called him Sam Small.” The simplistic writing seemed like something you’d see in a very young reader book. Like the Bernstein Bears. I noticed it less as the story went on, but I’m not sure if it got better or I just got used to it.
Character cluster. The Enemy is told from a limited third-person perspective covering 30-some characters (according to Amazon’s description, I didn’t keep count) – far too many to keep track of. All of the characters were one-dimensional, bland, and offering no emotional connection. Worse, the ginormous list of characters made it nearly impossible to follow the plot – especially in the dialogue-heavy parts. The fight scenes were such a mess, exhausting, and mostly useless. I skipped through them to the important part: who died. That’s really all you need to know.
Word waste. This book could’ve easily been shortened by 25 percent or more by cutting majorly from the first half. The conversations were too lengthy. The time spent at the compound was uninteresting. The action scenes were almost painlessly predictable: Hear/smell a grown-up. Grown-ups attack. Talk about how grown-ups smell/look. End of fight. Arran and Cullum’s characters should’ve just been nixed entirely.
Odd descriptions. Do you think a hoard of zombie-like creatures sounds like the sea or running water? I don't.
The first half of the book. I might’ve given up had it not been for the reviews. The plot just seemed boring and stupid. The kids were overly emo and defenseless, almost waiting for the grown-ups to come get them. Haven’t violent video games taught children anything? They went everywhere by foot and didn’t hijack cars even though it would’ve been easy to find keys in the now-abandoned houses or even in the ignitions (explained as most of the cars were out of gas by now – but how? Had all the cars been left running? No.)
As frustrated as I was during the first part of the book, the second half and ending made me want to read the next book in the series. The next book takes place a year before the first, when the outbreak first happened. I’ve only read a few pages, but it seems to be a little more gripping than its predecessor.
I gave The Enemy five of the 10 stars to represent the half of the book I liked.
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