Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon

You might be wondering why I'm writing a review for a book published in 2010. I actually meant to write a review for Infamous, the third book in The Nick Chronicles (which came out last month), but I figured it would be somewhat odd if the first review was missing, so here's Infinity.

Title: Infinity (Book One in The Nick Chronicles)  

Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin 

Release Date: May 25, 2010

Number of pages: 480

How I got the book: It fell from the sky

Genre: Paranormal, Fantasy, Young-adult 

Rating: Scroll to the bottom to see

This is going to sound cliche, but I didn't like Infinity. I loved it. Everything, from the characters, the voice, the story world... I don't think I'll ever get enough of The Nick Chronicles. It's entertaining, dark, and down-right hilarious at the same time. I'm extremely glad I never read the book during class. I'd probably get a talking-to from the teacher for laughing too loud, or for laughing during inappropriate moments.

National Geographic movie: "What's the difference between Tokyo and San Fransisco? Geographically speaking, they're both cities waiting to die..."

Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I can so picture that happening with my luck. And yes, that was an actual video that oversold tectonic plates.

Zee Author

The author, Sherrilyn Kenyon, did a fantabulous job of capturing the voice of the typical modern male young adult. I kind of miss reading about male protagonists and was glad Kenyon created Nick. More on that later. Anyway, apparently Kenyon has topped the NYT Bestseller list sixteen times. 

Sixteen times.

For some reason, I find myself more impressed with the fact that Kenyon writes Manga, though. Mostly because I've never met a young adult author who is also a Mangaka. Infinity, by the way, is her first young adult book and it has very high recommendations from me. 

Title and Summary

The cover art and the title is the main thing that made me buy the book. Heck, the summary could've been something like, "Suzy discovers she can talk to animals and then travels back in time to found out what really happened to the dinosaurs," and I still would've bought the book. 

Basically, the book is about Nick Gautier, a fourteen-year old boy who is the descendant of a Malachai, which is some kind of evil supernatural being. He doesn't know this, but readers are aware of this thanks to the omniscient point of view. Nick is destined to turn evil and become one of the most powerful beings to be reckoned with. The main plot of Book One is basically Nick trying to stop a swarm of zombies from eating everyone's brains and in the process of this, he's slowly getting a better grip on his powers and dealing with the supernatural.

On the other hand, it seems that the main plot of the series involves several forces either trying to prevent Nick from embracing his inner evilness or encouraging him to bask in it. It is hinted at a couple points in the novel that a major supernatural war will eventually take place and that Nick is a key player in all this. 

I know the plot may sound cliche, but then again, a lot of plots sound cliche. It's the journey and the characters that make all the difference.  

Anyway, here's the summary from GoodReads. Not to be offencive to the person who wrote the summary, but there is some false information included which I shall highlight. 

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?

He is not aware of his crush's true form, and neither are readers. Thank you backcover summary, for giving me information that was not provided in the text.

He has to hide a chainsaw from his principal!? Um, no. The idea of owning a chainsaw is mentioned once on page 347, but Nick never actually tries to hide a chainsaw from anyone, especially considering the fact that the school has been closed due to the zombie attacks.

The false information in the summary kind of ticked me off a bit. I guess I just hate being lied to, even if the liar is an incredibly awesome book. Anyway, don't let this misinformation make you not want to read Infinity. I still find it amazing regardless.

The Main Character

If I had to make a list of my top three favourite main characters of all YA, Nick would definitely claim one of the spots (don't ask me which spot, though. I haven't figured that out yet). I don't normally enjoy reading about "massive loser [dorks]" (page 6), but the instant I met Nick, I fell in love with him.

...Okay, maybe not the instant I met him because he was complaining about a hideous shirt he had to wear to school. I thought he would be one of those characters who complain about every single thing that seems to go wrong in their lives (ohmygosh! my shirt shrunk in the dryer! Now how will I look fabulous?), but I was proven wrong on the second page. Boom—I got instant sympathy for Nick when I got a chance to glimpse his situation at home and at school. But it wasn't the kind of sympathy where you mutter things like, "oh, that's terrible. If there's anything I can do, here's my number—" no. It was more of a subtle kind of sympathy, buried underneath all the admiration and love I had for the character. His refusal to accept being a massive loser dork, his wavering sense of justice, and infinite sarcasm made tagging along with him an amazing experience. Even in the face of possible danger, Nick never failed to make me smile. Or laugh out loud. As mentioned before, I'm very thankful I didn't read the book at school for fear of bursting into laughter during the middle of a lesson.

One of the things I didn't like about Nick was his "manpride," and it was confusing when  he would start talking about getting laid, but as soon as he sees his mom's stripper friends, he gets all shy. I guess he could've been acting that way because he kind of grew up with them, but if you grew up with strippers, wouldn't you have different opinions about getting laid at such a young age? I guess I don't really have any right to comment on this since I didn't grow up with strippers, but still. It was confusing. Going back to Nick's "manpride," it kind of annoyed me when he would say something like, "No way. I'm not gonna let a girl carry my bags for me. That just isn't right." Um, dude? She offered to carry them. A simple no thanks would've done. And what do you mean it's not right for a girl to carry your bags!? O_O

 

The Other Characters

As far as I'm concerned, every single character in Infinity is likable. I couldn't find one character I didn't love or love to hate. Well...besides Nick's mom. I know she's just trying to protect her little boy, but seriously? Calling Nick "Boo" and "Nicky" in public? Refusing to believe anything he says? Not giving him a break? Making him wear a hideous shirt to school? Honestly woman, have you ever even been a teenager? I know if my mom ever called my brother, "Davey-Boo," in front of his friends, forced him to wear super tacky shirts to school, and never listened to a thing he said, my brother would be out for blood.

I either passionately like characters or passionately dislike them. In the case with Nick's mom, it's the latter.

Moving past Nick's mom, the rest of the characters are all extremely colourful. I often found myself saying things to myself like, "ohmygosh! Bubba is my new favourite character! No wait, Caleb is! No, the Simi! But daaaaaaamn, Kody's got some 'tude." Choosing a favourite character in The Nick Chronicles is like choosing which slice of chocolate cake you're going to eat first. Or vanilla cake, in case you don't like chocolate, but you get the point. 

The Story World

I can't say I would be a fan of living in Nick's little town in New Orleans, but I can say that the whole "Dark Hunters" world seems pretty awesome. A Dark Hunter, by the way, is exactly that. One who hunts darkness. Darkness being demons, some kind of vampire-like creature (I forget the name. There's too many creatures to remember), and other supernatural beings that enjoy messing with our world. To be honest, I wish the author had put a bit more focus on the world of being a Dark Hunter. I think it's unfair, to get the readers to fall in love with a lifestyle that's super intriguing and mysterious to Nick, and then suddenly throw in a bunch of zombies and leave the reader waiting for the next book to be about the DH world. I guess what I'm trying to say is I thought the DH world would be part of the plot, but it was more the lifestyles of a couple of characters'.

 

Voice

I was about halfway through the book when I was hit with a sudden realisation. The book was written in the third person.

The voice was clear and strong. So strong, I wasn't even aware of what the POV was until the author decided to switch up the POVs so readers could get a glimpse as to what the bad guys were up to. Even though the book is written in third person, I still feel like I'm with Nick, like I'm inside his head...something that I rarely feel when reading third person. Sure, I've felt like I can guess the character's thoughts and have felt like I was in the same room as them, but I have never felt so deeply connected than I did when reading Infinity. Nick's voice is sarcastic and witty, bold but humble, hilarious even at the most serious of moments.

I mention this again at the end, but the voice is kind of like an advanced Middle-Grade voice (like D.J. Machale's Pendragon and Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson). The reason why this book would be classified under YA, though, is because of the content which involves

• somewhat dark scenes
• profanity
• metion of sexual content

 

 Conclusion

Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who loves zombies, the supernatural, humour, and whose main genre is YA. The style might make one think that the book is more of an advanced MG genre, but the content is what sets it apart. Yeah...there's some language and content in the book concerned mothers would find questionable. 

Major Trump: The colourful characters and their likableness. Rarely have I read a novel where every character is so unique, a non-cliche, and extremely likable. This is one of the major factors that got me to buy the next book, Invincible.  

Major Peeve: Whenever Nick  meets a girl, they are all described as, "the most beautiful girl ever." Okay...so that was five girls so far. Who is more beautiful, Nick? Make up your mind!

Minor Trump: The humour. The sarcasm. The voice. I could drown in it.

Minor Peeve: The willing suspension of disbelief is strong, but Nick needed to have questioned the supernatural a lot more. He finds out his boss' friend is some kind of immortal being. He's scared, and then five minutes later, he's cool with it. Yeah, my boss' friend is a god. No biggie. And my friend is a demon. What time is it? If I ever discovered any of those things, I would be freaking out. And it would take a while to convince me I'm not going crazy. 

It's actually very hard to score five muffins from me, especially since five=above and beyond in my world. A couple people in my Lit class didn't like the book (ohemgee! I counted twenty-five ellipses in the first chapter! Massive loser dork? What kind of insult is that? Ugh, the prose and the grammar are terrible!); however, everyone I did lend the book to ended up loving it and borrowed it for a few extra days to lend it to other people they knew. Right now, I'm praying that I'll get the book back the way I lent it out.