Rotters [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

What an incredible read. Rotters brings to life a secret society of men dedicated to the art and heroism of grave robbery. Connoisseurs of death, these men are throwbacks to the 1800's when the resurrectionists made their way by supplying the living with dead bodies. Take all of that and mix in a story of a teen coming of age,dealing with grief,and even school bullying and you get a story that is as complex and multi layered as any in YA literature.

Joey is sixteen when his mother is killed and he is forced to go live with a father he's never known. This starts his downward spiral into what some may call madness and despair but what Joey comes to consider as excitement and belonging. He's a marvelously well developed character and it's the strength of this portrayal that propels the story along. I felt his despair so keenly and his struggles were so realistically portrayed that I was glued to the page.

This story is not for the faint of heart. It's gross, intense, and often terrifying. It's probably the darkest story I've read in quite a while. It grabs you right from the beginning with Joey's frenzied descriptions of all the ways his mother could die, and doesn't let up till the very end. In between the reader is treated to some incredibly memorable characters. Every person we meet is nuanced and portrayed in such a way that you feel like you know their deepest secrets and true natures.

Rotters reminded me of Rick Yancey's The Monstrumologist. It exhibits the same high quality writing and often times gruesome subject matter, only in a contemporary setting. They are still quite different, but they both have intricate stories that are uncommon for this genre.

There are some truly lyrical descriptive passages in this book. Never has putrescence been described so beautifully and extensively. A foul odor permeates this story; Joey goes to school every day stinking of the grave, his father carries the odor as does their house. The author did such an effective job setting this scene that by the end of the book, I was certain that the odor really had begun to leak from the pages.

While there is not a lot of pulse pounding action here, the gruesome nature of events and the strong characters will easily keep readers flipping the pages long into the night. An insightful examination of death, the relationships between fathers and sons and ultimately the value of life, Rotters is a chilling look at things most don't want to think about. Best for older teens and adults, the vivid imagery and the characters are the stars of this show. A recommend only if you dare.

I have to take a deep breath here because my enthusiasm for Rotters is such that my review might quickly decompose to incoherent gushing.

This is the highest praise I can give:

If two of my favorite books got together and made a child, Stiff by Mary Roach and The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey, Rotters would be that unholy Frankenstein child - a breathlessly macabre creation of horror and pathos.

Death is all over this book, fear of death, physical death, emotional death, death of hope. Joey has been sheltered all his 15 years by his beloved mother, but when she dies and he goes to live with a father he's never met - Joey is pitched into a bleak and ugly new existence - and that's BEFORE he meets his first corpse.

As the son of the creepy and stinky "Garbage Man" (as Joey's father is called by the townspeople) Joey quickly becomes his new school's pariah. He is beaten almost daily, terrorized by a sadistic teacher, and has no friends. High school is a horrifying place and his cold father and dreary home is no comfort.

With ordinary society so putrid in its treatment of Joey, is it any wonder then that he becomes drawn to the mysterious world of grave robbing - his father's secret occupation? Joey buries himself in learning all about the underground realm of grave thievery composed of strange, solitary men loosely held together by pacts and old-fashioned codes of honor. Here, grave robbing is a calling and an art, almost noble in its tradition going back to the Resurrectionists of the 18th Century. Almost noble, but not quite - for nightly, Joey descends the underworld of foul, rotting corpses, Rat Kings, maggots, severed limbs in pursuit of jewelry and precious mementos to pawn. In sharing his father's shameful secret, a rough and unusual father-son bond develops between the two and Joey becomes his willing apprentice.

Of course Joey pays for entry into this morbid world of the Diggers when he turns his back on the living, whom he calls the Rotters. He digs himself into a black abyss of pain so deep that I was genuinely uncertain if he would ever climb out of it.

Rotters must have flaws, but I cannot think of any. I've been yearning for a truly dark YA book and now I've found one who's got dark in spades and then some: the corpses, the father-son relationship, the fascinating history of grave-robbing, the characters, the brilliant but mad villain, and sharp writing.

Your nose will wrinkle in disgust, you will shudder, you will want to turn away, but you won't because as twisted as Rotters is, you will be too thrilled to stop turning the pages.

Rotters is the tale of Joey Crouch's unique and morbid adolescence. When Joey's mother dies he's forced to go live with his father who he's never met and has no desire to meet. As Joey is tortured at school and neglected by his father his life seems completely unbearable. He then discovers that his father is a Digger, part of an infamous history of grave robbers. Joey begins to learn his father and the business during their nightly adventures. No detail of the grave robbing is left unexamined so this is certainly not for the squeamish. I learned more than I ever needed to know about corpses and what happens to a body when put in the ground leaving me even more in favor of cremation when my end comes! The story is grotesque and will certainly leave an impression on the reader. Unfortunately it's just not my cup of tea. I was struggling by the end to finally finish it. As much as I respect the writing and how the character of Joey and the grave robbing are so vividly written I never really connected with the story. It was certainly an experience but not one I'd be willing to repeat.