Infinity - Review

Infinity (The Chronicles of Nick, # 1)

By: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Published: May 25th 2010 by St. Martin's Griffin

464 pages

Source: Personal Library

( Goodreads | Amazon )

Goodreads description--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?

Infinity…This was a good start to a new (to me) series. While the book itself didn’t blow me away, I could tell that Sherrilyn Kenyon is setting up this intricate plan for her series. I can tell that things briefly mentioned in book 1 will be drawn upon, built upon, and referenced back to in the subsequent books. And so while I can probably only give Infinity 3 Stars, I still have hope that the rest of the series will exceed this rating.

It took me 277 pages exactly to feel hooked. I’m not sure if this speaks to the book itself or to the fact that I MIGHT be experiencing a reading funk. My reading funk might be attributed to several factors. One of these factors being that it’s way past time for me to see the optometrist and get my eyes checked. I definitely feel like my contact Rx has changed.

Also, I just don’t feel like I can save this any longer. I was planning to discuss this if/when I ever finish Destined (House of Night), but with all of this building up and me not being sure when I’ll finish that, I need to at least address it here. I’m not a fan of dialect within dialogue…like AT ALL. It doesn’t matter the genre. I genuinely abhor trying to read a book and having to slow down to try to figure out what the crap people are saying because they drop letters, words altogether, or because the author is trying to phonetically spell out a word or phrase. I HATE THIS! I hated it in Huckleberry Finn (a classic and one of the few books ever in my life to be added to the DNF pile for this exact reason). I super HATE it within the House of Night series because it’s compiled with some other pet peeves of mine. But I say all that to say that I didn’t enjoy it within Infinity either. It didn’t dominate the dialogue so I could look past it more so in this book than others, but I did note it and was annoyed whenever I’d come across it.

Now let me take a step back and state that I realize that dialect is a part of life. I, too, write and speak with contractions, but I try to keep it to ones which are taught as acceptable in school such as “can’t,” “didn’t,” “don’t,” “won’t,” etc. And honestly, being from central Alabama as I am, I speak with a southern accent. It’s a learned behavior. However, I specifically remember teachers hounding that we must write better than we speak because the written word is able to be dissected much more readily than any spoken ones. Honestly, I’m not a fan of my southern accent. I specifically struggle with people who purposely speak incorrectly or pride themselves in their southern accent (or any accent for that matter when incorrect grammar and speech is promoted). I do believe it’s a part of life that we will never eradicate. And considering language is almost a living organism in that it grows and changes constantly, I don’t have any misconceptions that this will ever change. However, I do not want to read dialect. It slows me down, I struggle through it. And I, personally, have a much better chance at imagining an accent or dialect, than I do trying to read one. Take for example Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy. Dimitri Belikov (along with other characters) has a Russian accent. However, Richelle Mead writes his dialogue in proper grammar and English, and indicates through description that his speech is flavored with an accent. I don’t even enjoy reading a southern accent, which is one I know how to speak and shouldn’t slow me down. Truthfully dialect/accented dialogue makes me feel like I’m getting dumber rather than smarter while I’m reading. I read because I love it, but also because I grow and learn simultaneously. I don’t want reading to make me feel like I’m digressing.

But as I said above, this isn’t dominate in the dialogue of Infinity to the point where I couldn’t still enjoy the book. It was just something I had to deal with periodically. I’m sure some people love accents and dialect within dialogue, but I’m just not one of those people.

The relationship with Nick and Kody felt a bit empty to me, but I’m hoping that will be built upon throughout the remaining books--hopefully adding depth and emotion. I completely loved how fiercely protective Nick was of his mom. I too have this crazy overprotectiveness when it comes to my mom. I can’t stand the thought of her being hurt or anyone doing her wrong. So I really related to Nick in that area.

Again, an overall good read and a good start to the series. 3 Stars for me. Have you read Infinity? What did you think? Let me know.