Review: Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Infinity

Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Series: Chronicles of Nick, Book One
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Format: Hardcover, 464 pages
Release Date: May 25, 2010
Source:  Mid-Columbia Libraries

Synopsis from Goodreads:

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he's next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

My Review:

The story started off kind of slow and I was tentative about it anyways because of the zombies. I think I’ve mentioned in earlier reviews that I am not a fan of zombies. But the whole Dark-Hunters thing caught my attention since I am such a huge fan of The Mortal Instruments. This was nothing like it, but still pretty good. It really started to pick up about ¼ of the way in and guess what? The zombies didn’t even bother me! Amazing. I think it was because for the most part they were fighting “live” zombies, not reanimated dead people, although there were some “normal” zombies as well.

This book is written in third person omniscient perspective meaning that we got all the character’s perspectives at once. I recently read a book in this perspective and hated it. It was confusing and choppy so when I realized that Infinity was written the same way, I got super nervous. But Sherrilyn Kenyon writes in this perspective flawlessly. I was never confused and it never felt choppy which was a great relief. I thought that I was just going to hate all books written from this perspective, but I guess it’s all about how the author writes.

Nick is hysterical. He is so sarcastic and reminds me of Jace from The Mortal Instruments. Nick doesn’t believe in anything supernatural. He is just a normal kid trying desperately to make it through high school where he is picked on and beat up every day. But it turns out there is a lot more to his high school and entire city than meets the eye. There are were-wolves, vampires, demons, dark-hunters, and zombies running rampant through New Orleans, invisible to the unsuspecting human.

Nick begins to meet all kinds of strange people secretly involved in the supernatural world and slowly throughout the book he begins to open his eyes to the “real” world. He is skeptical of everything and everyone, but begins to accept who he is, someone with great power, and learn how to harness that power to protect those he loves, chiefly, his mother. Nick’s dad is in prison, so he is the man of the house and is fiercely protective of his mom. Nothing else matters to Nick. He just has to keep his mom safe and happy.

There are a lot of very interesting characters in this book such as Kyrian, the man who saves Nick’s life and then gives him a job. We don’t find out what exactly Kyrian is, but he doesn’t seem human to me. We meet Acheron, a friend of Kyrian’s, who holds dark powers. Nekoda is Nick’s love interest in this book. She is mysterious and not much is revealed about her true character.

Two characters really stood out to me and earned the spot as favorite characters. The first was Bubba. He is a normal human who owns a gun shop. He advertises that he can kill zombies, vampires, or whatever other creature you need dead. A lot of people think he’s crazy, but he is, in fact, the only one prepared when the zombies attack New Orleans. Bubba is like the crazy apocalypse guy. He has ridiculous weapons and secret, steel-reinforced rooms in his shop. He was so funny in these books and a great character to throw into the mix.

My other favorite character was the Simi. She is some sort of demon, but she cracked me up so much, constantly talking about dumping bottles of barbeque sauce on the zombies and eating them. She befriends Nick and protects him and his friends from the zombies willingly and gleefully.

Overall this book was very entertaining. There was a lot of humor in it, but also a lot of dark mysteries that have yet to reveal themselves. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book and I will definitely be reading the rest of the series which include Invincible, Infamous, Inferno, and Illusion (to be released 2014). Happy reading all!  

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