I Love Him to Pieces

April 4, 2011
Though it starts out feeling like a lighthearted realistic fiction story, this graphic novel turns into a zombie story partway through. Nerdy Jack Chen and athletic Dicey Bell become more than friends when their high school gives them a parenting assignment to watch over an egg as if it's their baby. The two continue to draw closer, despite their differences. While on a date, word comes through that an infection is causing people to more or less turn into zombies, and the area is supposed to be evacuated. Jack gets bitten by one of the zombies and is fed a special pill in hopes it can stop the infection from overtaking him. But he isn't actually a zombie, which makes the title somewhat misleading. The zombie story comes in abruptly after the cute first half of the book, and it almost feels as if this consists of two different stories only linked together because it has the same characters. The ending also happens too quickly. Görrissen's artwork is slick and attractive, and she clearly has a skill for facial expressions. Ages 11âup.

July 1, 2011

Gr 7 Up-This first book in a series of horror romances is a stellar stand-alone thriller. Florida teens Jack Chen and Dicey Bell are from different worlds: he is a super-geek who plays RPGs and reads research projects for fun while she is a star baseball player, the only girl on the team. When they're paired together for the raise-an-egg project, neither of them expects to get romantically involved-or to end up sticking together to hold off a zombie plague. When Jack gets bitten, only an experimental drug developed by his scientist parents can keep him from turning-and he'll only survive with Dicey's help. More romance than horror, the story has delightful dialogue, engaging characters, and pitch-perfect flirting. Gorrissen captures the personalities of the characters in body language and facial expressions, revealing far more about what they're thinking and feeling than is provided in the dialogue alone. This is a strong beginning to a series of short teen romances that will later feature a vampire, faerie, and "monster" boyfriend. Readers of R. L. Stine's "Goosebumps" graphic-novel series (Scholastic) will enjoy this more mature, character-driven horror story.-Alana Joli Abbott, formerly at James Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford, CT

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2011
Grades 7-10 What happens when a baseball player and a goth nerd fall in love? The zombie apocalypse, of course. But jock Dicey is determined that she and Jack will surviveand maybe shell even finally get a kiss from him! Tsang and Grrissens entry in the new My Boyfriend Is a Monster graphic-novel series cashes in on the current zombie craze, but it does so with style and humor. Dicey and Jack are extremely likable charactersas are the bit playersand their young romance is crafted slowly enough to get readers invested in it. The middle section of the book gets rushed a bit when the zombies start appearing, but the final act, when the two teens try to fight their way out of embattled St. Petersburg, Florida, is scary and gory and exciting but not too bloody for a middle-school audience. Grrissens refreshing, black-and-white art gives the story a crisp, modern feel, with clearly individuated characters and realistic body types. A great beginning to a fun new series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2011
In Love, high school jock Dicey can see past science-loving classmate Jack's nerd status, but will a zombie bite destroy their relationship? In Made, Maria dates Frankenstein's monster's monster. Though these graphic novels don't stand up to multiple readings, their occasional tongue-in-cheek-horror humor and kick-butt female characters have some appeal. Black-and-white panel illustrations create an atmosphere of dark adventure.

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)