Infested is age-appropriate horror for the reluctant teen reader soul

Stop me if you’ve heard this, but when I was a youth I was a reluctant reader. Throughout my life I’ve always read comic books, however, it wasn’t until I started reading horror that I truly enjoyed reading. Back then it was Clive Barker, Stephen King, and any horror movie adaptations that I could get my hands on. Infested is mglit that is cut from a similar cloth and directed at the same 13-17-year-old readers who don’t want to. Older readers or educators will immediately be skeptical because Infested is from MTV Entertainment Books. If you’re old enough to say Martha Quinn let’s all get “but they don’t play music videos” out of our system now so that we can move on with the order of talking about the book.

I didn’t know that MTV had branched out into publishing. Technically, Infested is an MTV Fear release, which is an imprint of Simon & Schuster. There may well also be an MTV Love line of books that cater to angst-filled teens who can’t find their lobster because there are too many letters in the alphabet soup, but I don’t know and that is the point.

Infested is a horror book that is squarely aimed at teenagers. Those younger teens will find it edgier and scarier. The older teens will find comfort in reading a scary book with teen characters facing uncomfortable odds against millions of roaches, a family that doesn’t understand them, and a kid who they’re crushing on really hard. Both demographics will find enough gross details, mutilated bodies with cockroaches bursting out of them and step-parents who are strange to keep them entertained.

Manny has just moved from Texas to New York with his baby sister, mother and step-father, Al. They’ve relocated so that Al can work as the handyman to an apartment building that’ll be opening soon. Shortly after getting a tour of the place Manny meets Sasha, a girl about his age who is protesting the renovations happening. She wants to ensure that the apartments will have space allocated for those who don’t earn much money so that the personality of the neighborhood doesn’t change. The two teens have their angst, distrust of anyone over 20, and relative age in common, so let the horror ensue.

Even though the building has been fumigated, Manny finds the roaches first. It’s only a couple of them, but he squishes them easily, watching their gooey yellow innards stain the floor. He’s helping his stepfather clean the building and soon finds himself paranoid about roaches and the sensation of their spindly legs crawling over him. When Manny has a panic attack in the basement Peter and his father, Mr. Mueller come to his rescue. The two assure him that they properly killed most of the roaches and seem like genuinely helpful and caring people.

As any horror fan has already realized it’s those who seem the most golden are usually the ones who are up to the most evil. Mr. Mueller probably doesn’t have Manny’s best interests at heart and certainly has more nefarious intentions for the building and the new residents. He’s also a bit racist. This is age-appropriate horror that those teenagers will want to read. It’s just scary enough, with just enough emotional connection to where those ages can take a break, relate to the character and squirm along to their icky exercises.

Adults who stumble into Infested won’t find it as entertaining. I get that Mr. Mueller is a racist. Racists are bad, stupid people. Some folks find dealing with racists easier by belittling or ignoring them. The characters in the book kept referencing his racist tendencies or actions whereas 80’s horror would’ve referenced it once and then dispatched said person with a quippy one-liner.  I could’ve also gone without the profanity in the book. Again, you 80’s horror people didn’t need bad language to merit the creepy crawlies, it just crept and you didn’t need four-letter words to make the book seem older. I’ll get off of my old man soap box now because the odds of an adult accidentally reading Infested are really low. This is teen horror that’s self-aware of the clichés that exist in the genre and happily serves them up for today’s teens who need a technology break with their old friend, the book.

Infested is by Angel Luis Colon, an MTV Fear Novel, published by MTV Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

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