Review of Infinity

Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon (2010)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

She’s your mother. She’s going to be worried. Honestly, you have no idea how much your parents love you until something happens to you - then it’s too late. – Kyrian of Thrace

Genetics doesn’t always rule intellect. Believe me. I come from a long line of really stupid people. Scares me that I swim in their gene pool. Yet here I am, a hell of a lot smarter than they are. – Caleb Malphas

After the reading I’d done in the last week I wanted comfortable and fun. To me, Sherrilyn Kenyon is fun and familiar. I really like the way she writes. I love her characters. Caleb is one of my all-time favourite characters, between him and Chayden Aniwaya from her League series (and maybe the wonderful Kalder, we’ll see). I think a lot of the love I have for the Chronicles of Nick Series comes from the fandom and knowing the stories knowing that three of the characters are modelled after her wonderful sons, knowing what is coming, knowing that one of the most canonically important characters is dead, knowing that the fanonically Nick isn’t straight. But the writing is what keeps me coming back, Mrs Kenyon is nothing if not quotable.

The Chronicles of Nick is about morality, the fight between the dark and the light, the concept of destiny and coming into yourself. Infinity is about a 14-year-old and his whacky bunch of friends fighting zombies. Infinity is fun a stupid in the best possible way, from zombie hunters to a sassy book to sarcastic teenagers. It is far from the best-written book, but I’m not reading it for literary merit I’m reading it to escape. It will not be a book for everyone but if the idea f the blurb appeals then it is pretty much what it says on the back.

About Nick himself. He is 14 and poor, the kind of poor where you don’t know where your next meal is coming from. He is genius level smart and is attending a prestigious school on a scholarship. Nick is being raised by the 28-year-old Cherise, who works as a dancer to make ends meet. She was disowned at 14 when she found out she was pregnant and refused to give up the baby. Nick would give up anything for his mother, one word about her and no one can hold him back, there is a lot of love in their ‘house’. They are living in New Orleans; the setting is key to everything.

What is difficult to remember in the CoN series is how young everyone is or appears. Nick is the youngest at 14, his friends range from 15 to 29. In reality, ages are different, much different. It’s also not made clear that Infinity is set in 1996, 14 years before the publication date. Sherrilynkenyon.com is brilliant for dates and tidbits, for fans of her series it has become a hub. Each character has a biography (some have multiple because alternate realities) Nick was born in 1982 and is 14 in the book, years are never mentioned. But it really doesn’t change much.

The Chronicles of Nick feels like an author writing her own fanfiction, a prequel or a do-over fic. It is inexorably tied to Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter/ Were-Hunter books and characters do cross over. But their realities are different, Nick in the Dark-Hunter universe in more likely Ambrose. A glimpse of our Nicks future should things go wrong.

I’m sorry that this prattled on about the whole Chronicles of Nick series it is hard to review a book within a loved series without digressing when you’ve read so much of it, and Infinity is just an introduction to the series nothing like what it is capable of. But now I really want to re-read the rest of the series.

My reading experience in a gif:

Crossposted on Goodreads

References

brimalandro. (2013). Sassy Salem. tumblr. [Image File]. Retrieved from https://78.media.tumblr.com/e6f2ea46af9f68bc2f496443f4c53773/tumblr_mo3v74xXKq1qcqqpjo1_r2_250.gif

Chronicles of Nick series. (n.d.). In Sherrilyn Kenyon. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from https://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/book-series/chronicles-of-nick/

Cover for 9780312603045. (n.d.). Macmillan. [Image File]. Retrieved from https://images.macmillan.com/folio-assets/macmillan_us_frontbookcovers_1000H/9780312603045.jpg

Entire Dark-Hunters/Hunter Legends series series. (n.d.). In Sherrilyn Kenyon. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from https://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/book-series/entire-dark-hunter/https://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/book-series/entire-dark-hunter/

home. (n.d.). In Sherrilyn Kenyon. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from https://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/

Kenyon, S. (2010). Infinity. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin.

The League series. (n.d.). In Sherrilyn Kenyon. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from https://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/book-series/league/

McPherson, C. (2018, May 2). Catherine McP's review of Infinity. Goodreads. [Goodreads Review]. Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2377114086

Nick: CON. (n.d.). In Sherrilyn Kenyon. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from https://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/character/nick/