Mikey and his friends are just about to graduate from high school. It's their final couple of weeks before the summer holidays and then they're off on their separate ways to university. But there are a few problems :1) Mikey has OCD - it's so bad he thinks the loop won't break and he'll die;
2) His older sister Mel has an eating disorder and needs constant monitoring;
3) His dad is an alcoholic;
4) His mum is running for Congress and everyone has to appear normal;
5) He loves Henna, but hasn't told her, but Henna loves new boy Nathan, who seems very suspicious;
6) His best friend Jared is part God of feline animals;
7) The town they live in is about to be taken over by Immortals - they come in the guise of police officers with blue rays coming out of their eyes. But it's OK, the indie kids are around to save the day;
8) The indie kids are being killed off one by one;
9) There are zombie deer.
I know, sounds weird. It definitely seems that way when you start reading it, but strangely the main theme of teens struggling with emotions, exams, anxieties, sexual preferences, whether someone's your friend or not, whether someone fancies you or not, parents - all the usual teen angst stuff - makes the story seem more normal than it actually is. Many of you will spot throw-ins from other top-selling kids' novels - vampires (check), Greek Gods (check), cancer victims (check), zombies (check). I loved all the characters, and I think many teens will find something from each of them to identify with. I did spend rather a large amount of time wondering whether there was an underlying meaning to the Immortals and the indie kids. Were the Immortals just authority figures trying to run the kids' lives? Were the indie kids just synonymous with people being different and that it was ok to be different, that they matter too and are just as important as everyone else, in fact they can be the heroes? However in the end, I just enjoyed it for what it is - something a little bit different and a little bit wonderful by one of my favourite authors.
