Zombie Apocalypse Running Club

June 3, 2024
In this laugh-out-loud horror adventure, 16-year-old twins Soren and Eira must get their cardio game on-point if they hope to survive the zombie apocalypse that’s descending upon a small Alaskan town. Deciding to strike out on their own away from their fundamentalist parents (who don’t know that both siblings are queer), Soren and Eira leave their prepper family’s remote homestead. Upon their arrival to the nearest town, Marion Gap, the sisters discover it has been ripped apart by zombies. The only survivor seems to be their friend Racer, a Special Olympics gold medalist who has his work cut out for him in training the twins to outrun and outpace the infected hordes. As the trio attempt to make sense of this new and ravaged world, they venture out in search of help and community amid the collapse of society and find like-minded (and not-so-like-minded) survivors. Fans of zombies and comedic horror novels will find a lot to enjoy here; snappy prose by Mac (Wildfire) drives the subversive plot at a brisk clip, bouncing from place to place and introducing new and intriguing characters while maintaining focus on the girls’ catalyzing plight. Though the ending is somewhat abrupt, the emotional punch it delivers is well earned. Main characters read as white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Jess Regel, Helm Literary.

June 15, 2024
In 2030, twins brave zombies to escape their father's violence. Seventeen-year-old Eira Helvig--a self-described "giantess" at 6 feet, 6 inches tall--and her brother, Soren, planned to leave their Central Washington homestead, knowing their father, a "paranoid, racist, homophobic, xenophobic" doomsday prepper, wouldn't accept their queerness. When a strain of toxoplasmosis begins turning everyone into zombies, however, they're stuck sheltering at home. But after their father starts killing people who enter their land, Eira and Soren escape on horseback, leaving their mother and younger sister behind. Though Eira can vanquish zombies (thanks to her Renaissance faire swordsmanship), she can't outrun them. Luckily, she and Soren are coached by Racer, a Special Olympics triathlon champion with Down syndrome who created the titular club. As they encounter zombies and renegades across a corpse-littered landscape, ZARC gains new members, including nonbinary Cosmo, to whom Eira is immediately attracted. Can the survivors evade feeding zombies to reunite with their siblings at a safe haven? Despite the suspenseful premise, the underdeveloped secondary cast diminishes potentially powerful themes, such as the dissonance of loving a bigoted parent. While Eira and Cosmo's physical attraction is vividly portrayed, their rushed emotional bond is less satisfying, Soren, who quickly falls for a boy called Navinder, wryly comments that "queers move fast at the end of the world." Eira and Soren read white; secondary characters add ethnic diversity to the cast. Plenty of zombie action and queer romance but disappointingly little emotional bite. (Paranormal suspense. 14-18)

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August 1, 2024
Grades 9-12 Queer twins Eira and Soren plan to run away on their sixteenth birthday and leave behind the conservative Christian homestead where they grew up with their abusive father. When the zombie apocalypse breaks out a few days before, they decide they're safest with the devil they know. But a year later, their father has grown increasingly unhinged, spurring them to take their chances in the broken world. They discover not everyone is gone: their friend Racer, a Special Olympics medalist who has Down Syndrome, has survived and formed the Zombie Apocalypse Running Club, determined to teach people how to outrun the enemy. The three friends head west, looking for shelter and loved ones; with the undead everywhere, they have a lot of running to do. An interesting premise is led awry by jarring tonal shifts and a few too many convenient coincidences, but the solid friendships and found family at the heart of this novel will have readers remembering the most important thing about the end of the world: each other.

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August 30, 2024

Gr 9 Up-A dynamic celebration of sibling bonds in the midst of seemingly unending horror. Twins Eira and Soren are planning to run from their survivalist, very conservative father and the remoteness of the Washington State mountains when rumors of a new virus outbreak in Alaska begin. It quickly becomes apparent that the virus's victims do not remain dead, but instead reanimate as very fast zombies. A central secondary character, Racer Menendez, a three-time Special Olympics running gold medalist, quickly informs Eira and Soren that the zombies will catch them unless they develop a physical fitness training regime to improve their running, and he will happily coach their new running club. Racer has been separated from his brother, Eddie the town librarian, but he is positive that Eddie is still alive and just missing or lost. While undertones of religious intolerance and gender discrimination affect most character interactions and motivations, the most overt display occurs near the beginning of the book when the author clearly delineates why the twins feel they must escape the home provided by their parents, even if it means leaving their little sister Liv behind during a zombie uprising. The majority of the book is a slow journey through the western United States as the siblings search for missing loved ones and encounter a variety of unsavory characters and situations. Main characters present as white and LGBTQIA+, with nonbinary and transgender secondary characters. VERDICT Hand to fans of Jonathan Maberry's "Broken Lands" series, Jeff Hart's Eat, Brains, Love, and Ash Parsons's Girls Save the World In This One.-Susan Catlett

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