Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Maberry, Jonathan. (2011). Rot & Ruin. NY: Simon & Schuster.
ISBN: 978-1442402331
Awards/Honors: ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults (2011)
Bram Stoker Award Nominee (Novel, 2010)
Bibliotherapeutic Usefulness: Survival, Confidence, Friends, Family, Evil Humans, Orphans
Genre: Horror
Annotation: Tom Imura is a post apocalypse samurai who wields his sword with compassion and vicious accuracy. He and his kid brother, Benny, fight against evil humans, and the zombies that now amble freely.
Summary: This story is set in the future after some unknown catastrophe caused people to re-awaken after death into flesh eating zombies. Chaos ensued, leaving the planet mostly rot and ruin - zombie infested areas outside protected towns. Benny Imura is 15 and looking for a job so his rations don't get cut, just like all his friends. After searching around, he finally agrees to be his older brother's apprentice bounty hunter - for zombies. Benny hates his brother and thinks him a coward for running away when he should have saved their mom from becoming a zombie. What he learns with Tom in the rot and ruin slowly changes this perception. The bounty hunters he used to think were heroes turn out to be evil kidnappers, murderers, and facilitators of an awful place called Game Land. Game Land is where they take the kidnapped children, give them a club or stick, put them in pits with zombies, and gamble on who will win. Tom, Benny, Nix, and the crazy lost girl band together to put an end to Charlie Pink-Eye's band of marauders.
Evaluation: I loved this book. That said, there were some long winded preachy parts and Tom was unbelievable patient with impudent little Benny, but the rest of the book's greatness more than makes up for any minor faults.