Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

While the book attempts to stay light and funny, there is horror-related material from start to finish. Zombies are everywhere and they roam attempting to eat people. A huge array of gross monsters are shown (illustrated) attempting to eat the end-of-the-world surviving children as well as the zombies. We read quite a bit of material similar to “bodies decaying and limbs falling off” of the zombies. One monster is referred to as a demon (a couple other references, like a “demonic howl”). We hear that zombies are “wanting to greet us with their decaying fingers and sink their teeth into our skin and just straight up peel our flesh from our bodies”. So, there’s that. There are disturbing illustrations throughout. These are meant to be comical and not necessarily scary, but it is certainly not the type of graphic Christian children will find normal or ok. It opens on a pretty disturbing picture of a few decaying creatures. The second image is even more disturbing. Soon after we see a character slicing into a monster’s head. We see zombies with eyeball dangling out, throat missing with gnarly old flesh. A monster is shown having bitten the head off what looks like a man (it is actually a zombie). We see a giant rolling ball made up of mashed together zombies that is super disturbing, with heads and arms and such hanging out (detailed description, called “total nightmare fuel”). Jack (the main character) is supposed to be funny at the cost of sacrificing morality, manners, etc. He calls himself handsome and says he is “good with girls”. Someone tells him he did well and he responds, “I know”. He makes a reference to his “scummy little foster brother” and calls another kid stupid. He makes many comments along the lines of, “I feel like that blonde babe from King Kong”. He tells us he thinks people slipping on the ice or getting hit in the groin is funny. He later says to a friend, “Whoa, you’ve been partying pretty hard, huh? Where’d you hide the girls?” (meant to be ironic because his friend has a research lab setup). He comments he has “a serious thing for Malibu Barbie”. His take on school is also not one you will want to see in front of your children: “Now here’s the thing with schools. I hate them. You probably do too. Most kids hate school. But I hate school WAY MORE.” This comment helps capture the “trying to be funny” feel of the book: at one point Jack comments, “I don’t cut up zombies. The zombies used to be people! I mean, it’s not their fault they’re zombies now. I’m not stabbing these things that used to be people in the head with a splintered sword-thing. Just not kosher.” There is obviously a pretty significant amount of violent material as the kids battle the monsters. Example comments: “I’m going to strangle you with my shoelaces”, zombies are “eager to eat any breathing humans who gets close”, “plucks out my eyes”, “If it bleeds, we can kill it”. When grabbing supplies the boys grab a copy of “SI Swimsuit Edition” (a magazine known for showing women in skimpy bathing suits). There is a comment, “thanks Quint’s dad”. Just gross and unfortunate in several ways. The following terms are used: jerk, barf, holy crud, jerks, geezer, dorkville, freaks, dork, losers, geek, shut-up, weirdo, stupid. There is a decent amount of content around a love interest (nothing goes too far). There is a reference to making out. There is an illustration of Jack sitting on a bucket, using it as a bathroom, with his pants down. Reference to Conan the Barbarian, James Bond and Indiana Jones. The following terms are used: “dopeness defined” (dope is a drug-related term), “moonshine Mountain Dew”, “root beer cocktails”, “holy moo cows”, “holy mother of crud balls”. A comment is made that something “sounds like you-know-what on earth”. The boys watch horror movies. A friend’s mom is called “quite hefty” and referred to as “Big Mama”.