The Enemy by Charlie Higson

Amazon Summary:

In the wake of a devastating disease, everyone fifteen and older is either dead or a decomposing, brainless creature with a ravenous appetite for flesh. Teens have barricaded themselves in buildings throughout London and venture outside only when they need to scavenge for food. The group of kids living a Waitrose supermarket is beginning to run out of options. When a mysterious traveler arrives and offers them safe haven at Buckingham Palace, they begin a harrowing journey across London. But their fight is far from over—the threat from within the palace is as real as the one outside it.

Full of unexpected twists and quick-thinking heroes, The Enemy is a fast-paced, white-knuckle tale of survival in the face of unimaginable horror.

Review:

I'll admit it, I only decided to read this because I liked Young Bond, but after reading this one I think I will continue to follow the series.
Some housekeeping...

So for the premise of this book think Lord of the Flies meets Gone meets the Zombie Apocalypse. While the adults aren't zombies per se, that's basically what they're supposed to be an equivalent of.
The genre is more or less dystopian horror/thriller. It's more horror in the first half and more dystopian in the second. This is because of the greater presence of one thing in the second half - politics. Dystopians tend to be marked by an oppressive, controlling, or megalomaniacal political system or leader and The Enemy is no exception -  whether that's fortunate or unfortunate is for you to decide.
A couple notes about the cover. First, one thing I've noticed is that YA books of British origin come with content warnings ("Contains scenes of violence" for TimeRiders, "Not for younger readers" for CHERUB, etc.). I wish all YA publishers did this - it would make life alot easier for those of us who have problems with certain content. The content warning for this book reads "Contains strong language and scenes of violence". While I agree with the "scenes of violence" part, the language here wasn't that bad - some b-words, but no f-words or anything. Second, this isn't the first book I've come across that proclaims itself as  "a heart-stopping new series" on the cover. It's a bit of a turn-off for me because saying that is downright cheesy. Fortunately the cheesiness did not reflect on the book itself.
Now for the meat of the review... (pun not intended)
Spoiler Warning
One thing that sets The Enemy apart from mainstream lit is that  the protagonist dies in the first third of the book. The annoying thing about this is that doing it leaves an emotional void in a novel because one doesn't connect emotionally with the other characters as one does with the protagonist. So while it shows the author's creativity, it's also one of the book's weaknesses.
End Spoiler Warning
Another fault I found with this book was some of the language that was used. Not crude language, but language that's far too childish/kiddish for the audience Higson intended this series for. For example, the adults are called "grown-ups" instead of adults and "mothers and fathers" instead of women and men. This doesn't make sense because by the time you're fourteen (which most of the main characters of the story are) you don't call adults grown-ups anymore and you don't assume every adult has kids.
In addition, some events were never properly explained, which was confusing. Spoiler Warning For example, an adult, who hadn't been diseased up to that point in the book, dies from the disease within minutes of coming out into sunlight  instead of becoming sick and taking a long time to die like the rest of the adults. Why he died so quickly is never explained. End Spoiler Warning
The Enemy also throws the reader into it's post-zombie apocalypse world with little-no explanation of what's going on. It's not as confusing as it was with BZRK though, and one figures out what's going on pretty quickly.
The pacing and intensity are decent, but not uber-intense, which would have made it better in my mind. The climax was also a little underwhelming.
All in all a decent book, Higson didn't make too many mistakes, but he also didn't take too many risks or  make the book as good as it could have been. In the end, its original/creative premise is one of the only things that makes it stand out from all the other dystopian novels crowding YA shelves today. Recommended to fans of dystopian or zombies.
3.5/5 stars