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?
This novel is the start of a spin-off series of another of Sherrilyn Kenyon's series, Dark Hunters. I haven't read that series, and I was unaware of this when I started reading, and I found that I had difficulty keeping track of all the many characters and subplots. Having not read that other series, I can't tell you whether or not that makes this book an easier read, but be prepared if you pick up Infinity for a whole lot of stuff going on, and unless you're really adept at keeping track of characters and various background stories, a bit of confusion. While the world in Infinity is certainly interesting (and action-packed) there are a lot of different creatures, all of which explode onto the scene at the same time. I got the feeling when reading this that it was trying to target readers that are teenaged boys.
It didn't seem a lot like a YA novel - Nick was fourteen, several other characters were teenagers, and most of the time his voice sounded teenaged (if a little cliche), however I also felt at times that it was like an adult novel with the curse words cut out. Which seemed a bit unnatural. I think this is because the author predominantly writes for an adult audience.
I felt a bit unsure what to feel about this book as I read it - it all seemed quite ridiculous and over-the-top, and in that way it was good - some funny characters, and crazy, out-there plotlines (zombies created by a video game, which I think is cool) - however a lot of things were left unfinished, and even after having finished the book I'm still a bit confused. I don't read much of this genre, so I'm not sure whether this fits with it - the full-on action, large casts of crazy characters, lots of unresolved plotlines - so I'm really not the best reviewer. I would have loved more character development. I felt that with so many characters and so much going on, no one had any time to become fully-developed characters.
I'd recommend this if you like action-packed, plot-driven urban fantasy for the younger end of the YA spectrum (the content would be suitable for eleven and up, I think), with zombies and lots of, well, everything.
Infinity on Amazon / Goodreads
If anyone else has read this book, I'd love to know what you thought of it - I really wish I was more of a fan of urban fantasy so I could review this within the context of the genre.
