Jon's Reviews > Sick

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I had been longing to read Sick ever since I saw that it was being marketed as "Breakfast Club meets The Walking Dead". Sick was even one of my "Waiting On Wednesday" picks in July and I was dying to read it. Sick just might be my most disappointing book of 2013 by a long shot.

Don't believe Sick's description at all, the marketing for this book is built on false pretenses. When I read "Breakfast Club meets The Walking Dead", I should have known it was a gimmick because that comparison is too good to be true. Sick is nothing like The Breakfast Club at all and doesn't deserve to be compared to such a classic movie. The only element of Sick that remotely resembles The Breakfast Club is the fact that kids from different cliques and walks of life are stuck in the same room. That's where the similarities to The Breakfast Club start and end. Sick is NOT a coming-of-age story despite the comparison and the characters don't progress morally at all to justify the comparison.

I can definitely understand the comparisons to The Walking Dead and it's a pretty accurate comparison. There is a lot of survival aspects of this story and there are a ton of gory zombie moments in this book. I love gore in books, but Sick felt excessively gore to the point where I didn't feel so well. The zombie aspects of Sick are executed well for the most part. Leveen has created a new type of zombie, these buggers are hunched and have crystalline features. At one point in the story, the zombies were described as sparkling and I couldn't help but be reminded of Twilight. I appreciate Leveen's efforts to create a new type of zombie, but we have enough sparkling paranormal creatures, thank you very much. Zombies don't need to sparkle, it's unnecessary and I'm not ready for zombies to be ruined for me. Vampires were taboo for me for a long period of time and I refuse to let that happen to zombies.



Sick has some of the least intelligent characters I've read about ever and they frustrated me to no end. In addition to this, some of the characters also enjoy racist jokes. Here are some lovely quotes from this glorious book:


Exhibition A: Let's be offensive and racist! I didn't know being a bigot was in season?
"I didn't know a black kid could be pale, but Hollis is."

"Maybe they're bustin' him for somethin'"
"Like what?"
"Bein' black"
"Good point"

"Are you, like one of those high-functioning retards?" he asks.
"Because I'll kick your Mexican ass square into next week, ese."


"This is the United States of America," Kat says, pretty calm under the circumstances. "We're not in Rwanda here, you guys. Someone'll show up, we've just got to sit tight."


Exhibition B: Let the idiocy begin!
"What the snap crackle fuck you talkin' about?"

"Let's go fuck this monkey"

"Say the world, and we're off like a prom dress."

"It's Chad o'clock, motherfuckers."

"Just out of curiousity, is there a Spanish word for zombie?"
Jamie considers this a second before suggesting "Zombrero?"


I wish I could say that these quotes made sense when in context, but that's not the case. This book gives teenagers a bad image and makes all teens look brain-dead. I kid you not, my e-ARC was filled with random quotes that made me want to weep for humanity. None of the characters are likeable at all and the MC never ceased to irritate me with his constant need to judge everyone. If you're questioning whether to read Sick or not, it really depends if you'll be offended by racism, prejudice, and mindlessness.

I wish I could say the plot makes up for the horrendous dialogue and frighteningly unlikable characters. The plot is nothing special at all and is an average zombie story. There is a lot of running around, panicking, planning to escape, and people trying to figure out how the zombies were created. Sick stoops lower and lower as the book goes on and even manages to use a bunch of cliches. The characters even made a Lord Of The Flies joke, how clever! Not to mention that I've seen this story countless times and I just couldn't really immerse myself in this book. Luckily, I read Sick pretty quickly considering how much I hated it. The plot is extremely fast-paced and it always seems like there is something going on. I may not have enjoyed Sick, but I give credit to Leveen for making sure there is never a lull in the plot.

Sick by Tom Leveen is definitely one of the worst books I've read all year. I honestly couldn't handle the excessive racism, offensive humor, and goriness. I'm not sure if I would recommend this one to anyone at all; I'm still not sure who the target audience for this one is because it manages to offend people from many different walks of life. Sick never ceases to be crude at all and I'm still questioning why this book is going to be published. Yikes!