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Rot & Ruin is a science fiction novel written by Jonathan Maberry and published by Simon & Schuster, set in the post zombie apocalypse. Maberry has been active as a professional writer and English teacher since 1978. The book was released in the United States in September of 2010; It was released in the United Kingdom in March of 2011. The book was released as the first in a series, it's sequel, Dust & Decay, was released August of 2011. Set fourteen years after the zombie apocalypse, the novel follows Benny Imura five months after he turns fifteen who must now find a job or his rations will be cut in half. The novel is a third-person narrative that follows the protagonist (Benny Imura). Upon release, the book was generally well-received and received a majority of positive reviews.

Setting
Rot & Ruin takes place fourteen years after the zombie outbreak, where the majority of living humans are spread out in small settlements just barely getting by and people are forced to get jobs at fifteen or their rations are cut in half. The communities rely on partly traders who pass through and partly the sparse gardens that a few people grow. Rot & Ruin plays out in the settlement known as mountainside and in the land beyond the fence which is known as the Rot and Ruin.

Characters
The main character of this story is a fifteen year old boy named Benny Imura who is searching for a job so his rations are not cut in half. There are many secondary characters who appear throughout the novel. Tom Imura is Benny's older half brother who's job is to hunt down zombies and put them to rest for their families. Chong and Morgie are Benny's best friends who appear many times throughout the novel. Nix is Benny's love interest in the story, even though he won't admit it sometimes. Charlie Pink-eye and The Motor City Hammer are two other bounty hunters who oppose Benny's brother, Tom, and eventually Benny as well.

Plot summary
The novel begins with Benny Imura and his friend Chong looking for a job so their rations do not get cut in half. They try a variety of job including locksmith apprentice, fence tester, carpet coat salesman, and erosion artist. In the end Chong got a job as a spotter for the local watch. Benny was still left without a job, so he goes to his older half brother, and zombie hunter, Tom to ask if he can be his apprentice. Tom accepts and the next morning they set out into the Rot and Ruin.

While they are beyond the fence Benny realizes things that he never thought happened. He realizes that sometimes zombies aren't the monsters, sometimes it's the living. This hits Benny hard, so hard in fact that he goes through life in a haze for the next week just thinking about all that he saw.

Soon after that Benny found a zombie card with a picture of the lost girl on it. She is known as a young girl who wanders the Rot & ruin surviving on her own. Benny is enamored by this girl and sets out to learn more about her by asking the person who drew the picture for the card. In the end Benny finds out that the erosion artist in Mountainside, his home town, is the person who drew the picture for the zombie card.

The erosion artist, Rob Sacchetto, tells Benny all that he knows about the lost girl and finishes by telling him to ask Tom for the rest of the story. Although when Benny goes to leave Charlie Pink-eye and The Motor City Hammer are there, and they want the zombie card. Before anything serious happens Tom steps in and takes Benny home for his zombie hunter training. That night Benny asks Tom about the lost girl and he starts his story.

Halfway through the story a giant storm breaks out and all hell breaks loose. By morning rise Rob Sacchetto is dead, Nix's mom is dead, and Nix has been kidnapped. Benny and Tom go on a quest to rescue Nix. Along the way Benny learns the rest of the lost girl story from Tom and about a terrible place known as Gameland where children are taken to fight zombies for others pleasure and enjoyment. He also meets the lost girl, rescues Nix, and defeats Charlie Pink-eye and The Motor City Hammer.

In the midst of all the excitement Benny and Nix see a jumbo jet fly overhead, turn around, and go back the way they came. After everything is said and done Nix and Benny decide that they should go after the jet and see where it came from. In the end Benny and Tom go to Sunset Hollow, which Benny has been hearing about throughout the entire novel. Inside he finds out that Tom was never a coward, he is the reason Benny is still alive.

Reception
Many of the people who read this novel generally loved it. They say that the novel is better than any normal zombie book, such that it involves a large amount of killing, blood, and violence. The novel, to them, has more feeling between the human characters, so much so that some readers claim to cry while reading it. Although there are some critics who believe that a zombie novel with romance and minimal decapitation is not a zombie novel at all.

Awards
Rot & Ruin has gained a lot of prestige in the time that it has been around. It won the 2011 Eva Perry Mock Printz medal. It was also selected to be a finalist for the 2010 Cybils Award, in the 2011 it won. The novel also won four of the eleven nominations it received for Melinda Awards. It won Best Plot, Best Character Development for Benny, Best First Kiss for Benny and Nix, and Best Literary Boyfriend for Tom.