Warning: If you have not read “Sick” by Tom Leveen, don’t read this review unless you want spoilers!
I’m back with another book review, and this time it’s “Sick” by Tom Leveen! Here’s a summary so we know what it’s about:
“Brian and his friends are not part of the cool crowd. They’re the misfits and the troublemakers—the ones who jump their high school’s fence to skip class regularly. So when a deadly virus breaks out, they’re the only ones with a chance of surviving.
The virus turns Brian’s classmates and teachers into bloodthirsty attackers who don’t die easily. The whole school goes on lockdown, but Brian and his best friend, Chad, are safe (and stuck) in the theater department—far from Brian’s sister, Kenzie, and his ex-girlfriend with a panic attack problem, Laura. Brian and Chad, along with some of the theater kids Brian had never given the time of day before, decide to find the girls and bring them to the safety of the theater. But it won’t be easy, and it will test everything they thought they knew about themselves and their classmates.”
It’s been a while since I read an apocalypse-esque book and reviewed it, so I figured “Sick” would be a great way to get back into this sort of genre.
Good news: The pacing of the book was well done, though definitely a bit fast! You could feel the tension between the characters when they were trying to survive the zombies or ‘sick’ humans out to eat and/or infect them the entire time. I sympathized with them and their situation, and I literally cheered a bit when Laura, Kenzie and Brian managed to make it out (with help from Brian’s MOM, of all people).
The worldbuilding behind the zombie apocalypse and how it unfolded and affected the characters was also well written as well. They had actual explanations as of how so many people got infected in such a short period of time, and how it was affecting the world outside the school Brian and the others were trapped in. This helped add to the plot of the book overall.
Bad news: None of the characters felt fleshed out except for Brian, Kenzie, Laura and Chad. To be fair, this was a zombie apocalypse and people were getting killed off left and right. The fast pacing of the book did not help their character growth as well. If anything, this book should be read more for the plot and the worldbuilding, as opposed to the characters themselves.