Review of “Club X: Zombie in the Fridge” by S.P. Somtow

Score: 84/100 (8.4 out of 10)

Club X: Zombie in the Fridge by S.P. Somtow is an ambitious book, blending elements of horror, fantasy, and humor. The book stands out with its eclectic narrative and eccentric thematic explorations but falls short in coherence and consistency, something which could make it a challenging read for some.

While reading, there was a real sense that the book seemed to lack cohesion and coherence. In terms of cohesion, there are so many different things and ideas being thrown at the reader—time travel, quantum entanglement, parallel realities, alternate worlds, alternate selves, gender fluidity, transsexuality, organized religion, boarding schools, zombies, vampires, films, film-making, aliens—that it really came across as disorganized, disjointed, and unfocused, unfortunately.

We really hate to say things like that, but we also have to be honest. And the author seems like someone who is very brilliant and full of creative zest; we're just going to chalk this up as not being their best work.

We actually enjoyed parts and aspects of their previous work, Delicatus, which was a previous super champion/overall winner in our contests. However, that book had something that this book simply doesn't: weight, depth, emotional engagement, a sense of actual danger and vulnerability, and a sense of subtextual significance. That's not to say there isn't any subtext, but it just doesn't hit as hard or as clearly.

In Delicatus, we really felt like important things of actual historical significance were happening. There was a menacing villain and an edgy, intriguing LGBT+ relationship. It also seemed very well thought out. Characters and plot seemed interconnected. There was tension. There were power dynamics. There was actual chemistry.

However, in our opinion, there's very little of that to be found in Club X: Zombie in the Fridge.

Everything in this book just seems so hollow and soulless. The characters seem so goofy, paper-thin, and two-dimensional, practically only serving to facilitate thinly-veiled social commentary about gender fluidity and gender identity rather than being deep, compelling, and real-seeming characters in and of themselves (the way that Sporus and Gaius Petronius Arbiter were in Delicatus). It's so unfortunate because we really wanted to enjoy this book . Heck, we still think that there may be a niche group of people who might enjoy this book. We can only speak for ourselves and our experiences reading and reviewing so many works of fiction.

The whole tone, narrative voice, and the way the story is told came across (to us) as overly silly, absurd, ridiculous, and bizarre. A little bit of that is fine, but this was venturing into Axe Cop and Aqua Team Hunger Force territory. Again, there's an audience for fiction like that, we're not denying that. However, those types of things don't usually get considered for Pulitzer Prizes and Oscars. Why? Well, it's not necessarily that they're not enjoyable, it's because they're almost impossible to take seriously.

There's a concept in literature called the suspension of disbelief. It refers to the willingness of an audience to accept unrealistic or improbable elements in a work of fiction for the sake of enjoyment or storytelling. It's when readers or viewers consciously set aside their skepticism or critical thinking about the implausibility of certain events, characters, or settings within a narrative. This allows them to fully engage with the story and its fictional world. And there are two huge things that make the suspension of disbelief possible:

1. Engaging storytelling
2. Emotional connection

For example, Doctor Who has some things about it that are pretty goofy and bizarre. Ok, fine. But why do we play along? Why do we still watch it? Well, it's because the titular Doctor is such an interesting, mysterious, and charismatic character! And her/his companions are usually quite hot and interesting as well! What's more? The villains and antagonists are cool and fascinating. Daleks and Cybermen are pop culture icons and each have their own personalities, motivations, and cultures (not to mention catch-phrases). You can probably throw the Weeping Angels in there as well.

Star Wars also has lots of things about it that are pretty ridiculous and absurd. So, why do we still watch all the movies, buy all the toys, and talk so much about it? Well, because it introduced us to cool weapons like lightsabers and the Death Star. It had engaging stories and character dynamics like the ones between Darth Vader and Luke, Anakin and Obi-Wan, and Han Solo and Leia.

However, there's so little of that to cling onto in CLUB X: Zombie in the Fridge. Yes, there's a lot of silliness. Yes, there's a lot of goofiness. Yes, there are tons of zombies. There's a time-traveler/reality warper. There are alternate worlds and alternate versions of characters. There's a magic refrigerator with dead body parts in it that can transport you elsewhere like a Stargate or a TARDIS. There are... some teenage kids with strange names who seem to somewhat care about each other. However, none of that seems built on a strong and/or sturdy foundation. This is like a lot of colorful paint just randomly being hurled at a canvas.

We're not saying that this book doesn't have a foundation. We're not saying that it doesn't have vision. What we're saying is that the foundation seems shaky at best and the vision is blurred and muddled by too many ideas competing for one's attention at once. And, ultimately, it all doesn't seem to take up a discernible, concrete, and/or tangible form, sorta like that random painting we described.

Going back to what we were saying about the suspension of disbelief... there's so little to cling onto. There's little to no emotional depth to these characters or plot. It just didn't grip us and compel us the way that characters and a story should.

First of all, the conflict is chaotic and unclear.

At first, we're led to believe that these Club X characters—Polo, Kim, Danger, Fluke, and Donut—are
trapped in a strict, oppressive, magical, supposedly-Catholic, probably-evil boarding school called St. Cecilia's, the location of the magical, TARDIS-like refrigerator in the convent's sitting room. The school is basically a hellish Hogwarts with some really sketchy leadership and faculty including his eminence Cardinal Crank (a probably-evil alien whom the characters think is a sexual predator), Sister Evangeline (a nun with a penis who used to be a member of a biker gang because... why not?), and Doctor Strange (an $%#hole who inconveniences pretty much everyone by being vague and sending them on errands through space & time, i.e. fetch quests). Gosh, why does his name have to be Doctor Strange? You know, like the Marvel character? Couldn't he have had a more original name? It just stuck out to us like a sore thumb.

Anyway, the school is surrounded by a magical force-field that basically acts like a barbed wire fence around a prison. Eventually, we learn that they're actually quarantined because there's, like, a zombie infestation caused by a virus from a video game created in an alternate/parallel world. No, we're not making this up, that's pretty much the plot.

Oh, yeah, and it seems to be a school rule that “Everyone has to present as the opposite gender.” This is more of that social commentary about how it's wrong to force people to be a gender they don't identify as. There's another quote about how, in Alabama, heterosexual couples are denied the right to marry the way that homosexual couples were at one point. More social commentary.

You know, that fine and all, but... this book is already top-heavy as it is. Adding all of this didactic, thinly-veiled social commentary on top of a 260-page book that already has time travel, alternate worlds, zombies of various kinds, a sorta-vampire-man/method actor, a magical school, a magical refrigerator, an evil alien overlord, and a biker nun with a penis... it just seems so excessive and superfluous. It's like piling straws on top of a camel who is already flattened like a pancake. That thing isn't moving any time soon. Just let the poor thing up and let it breathe, for goodness sake!

But wait, there's more! At some point, the gender-fluid main character, Polo, is infected with the trans-dimensional video game zombie virus and becomes a zombie whose body is continually falling apart and decaying.

Now, a part of us feels like this was supposed to be humorous and funny. There are some shenanigans involving Zombie Polo that are somewhat amusing, but it got a bit gross and off putting to read about. There were times we were literally trying to eat while reading these scenes, and we just had to put our food down.

Now, we've read A LOT of disgusting scenes in A LOT of books involving tons of guts and body parts. However, there's something about the way that body parts and gore are described in this book that just didn't sit well with us. And that brings us to the next point:

Why is there so much sexuality and sexualization of characters in a book involving minors as the central characters? Now, we know that they're technically teens, but they're still minors. Yet, we have at least one sex scene set up. We have characters constantly (and we mean CONSTANTLY) discussing their genitalia to each other.

Who is this book supposed to be for? Because these characters are minors, but there's so much gore (including intestines flying everywhere), so much sexuality, and so many F-bombs (and more foul language) to go with it. Look, we are not prudes at all. But we have a good sense of what fits and belongs in certain books and what doesn't. Books in which the main protagonists are minors do not need this kind of graphic content and language. It's really off-putting and upsetting. It alienates large segments of the potential audience and impacts the book's marketability. We'd highly recommend that the author tone these things down if they want to market to a teen/YA audience or prominently feature characters who are minors.

Like, in Delicatus, we understood that the book took place at a time when people had shorter lives and so had relations with people at a younger age. The times were different in Ancient Rome. They had a different culture.

However, we hate to say it, but we really had a sense of disgust while reading parts of this book that described the private parts of these minors and the adults around them. This content really belongs in books targeted at adults featuring adult characters, not a YA/teen book featuring characters who are minors.

There's a scene in which Red Polo's “prehensile intestine shot out from his ass and began fiddling with the keyhole of the first padlock.”

First of all, this sounds gross and disgusting. Second of all, there is a really creepy sexual subtext to this description as the character, who is still a minor, is projecting a protruding phallic object into a hole. Yes, it's a fictional story. Yes, it's a fictional character. However, it's still a minor. It's so disturbing to read passages like this, and not in a good way.

We think this scene was supposed to be funny in a slapstick, nonsensical kind of way, but slapstick humor is like Tom & Jerry or The Three Stooges. You don't see Curly's guts hanging out of his stomach. You don't see Tom bleeding all over the place. This just came across as really, needlessly inappropriate, gory, and disturbing.

When Fluke is found in a battered state, we get the bizarre line by Red Kim, “Did someone … rape him?”

Of all things... why is this line in here? Fluke is a minor. Kim/Red Kim is a minor. Why do the characters and the narration immediately have to jump to something so disturbingly violent and sexual? It just seems so... wrong and off-putting.

When the nun comes in to help the protagonists, we get the line: “But before you defrock me for having a dick, I’m gonna save your asses.”

First of all, who talks like that? Really? Secondly, what adult goes up to a group of minors and talks like that? Who gives a crap what's between your legs?! If you're going to save the kids, just shut up and save the kids because it's the right thing to do!

If you're going to make Scary Movie, do it with adult main characters not minors. If you're going to write for adults, write for adults. If you're going to write for kids, write for kids. Don't try to drag kids into a dark, demented, twisted narrative.

There are 28 uses of the “F” word, 41 uses of the “S” word, 7 uses of the word “dick” (not including references to Moby Dick), and 8 uses of “penis.” Again, we are not prudes, but what are these things doing in a book that seems to otherwise be a YA/teen book?

There's a time and place for this type of vulgarity and language. For example, Black, White, and Gray All Over by Frederick Douglas Reynolds featured over 40 “motherf*$&ers” and variants of it. However, that was a book about a police officer in serious life or death situations. Numerous books about war and PTSD contain vulgar and foul language, and that's because they're books about war and PTSD.

This, on the other hand, is an absurdist time-traveling zombie book with silly characters and a completely implausible plot with almost no suspension of disbelief. In other words: it's for FUN! So, why is this vulgarity and language being used? There's no real danger. There's no serious threat. When Polo falls apart, they can just put him back together like a Mr. Potato Head (almost literally). It doesn't meet the qualifications to justify or warrant that kind of vulgarity and language.

We said almost the same thing about Diaspora by J.P. Ozuna, another book that starred YA/teen characters yet featured very adult language and scenarios for no good reason (not advancing the plot or serving the story). J.P. Ozuna took this advice and produced another book (2030) that's much better and doing great in this contest.

Just something to think about.

Imagine how many more readers the author could have if they didn't include this kind of content? Imagine the increased marketability and accessibility.

This book also has some editing and proofreading issues that took away from the reading experience. Here are a few:

“It’s made from the internal organs if the puffer fish” should probably be “It’s made from the internal organs of the puffer fish”

“I don’t want you die” should probably be “I don’t want you to die” or “I didn’t want you to die”

“I’m not going leave myself behind” should probably be “I’m not going to leave myself behind”

“There’s only one way solve this” should probably be “There’s only one way to solve this”

“...even I managed to figure out that that meant” should probably be “even I managed to figure out that meant”

“Does this mean that that whole universe is just some kind of programmable video game?” should probably be “Does this mean that whole universe is just some kind of programmable video game?”

“I’ll stick one in in case” should probably be “I’ll stick one in just in case”

“My mother’s quarters at St. Cecilia’s are not like the soft beds we sleep in in the residence hall” should probably be “My mother’s quarters at St. Cecilia’s are not like the soft beds we sleep in at the residence hall.”

Another thing we really didn't enjoy about this book was the clearly A.I.-generated art. Let's just ignore the ethics of A.I.-generated art for a moment. Our real issue is that it just looks plain bad. Some of it looks really bad. It's nightmare fuel. There's very little consistency in the style of the A.I. art or the appearance of individual characters. They look warped or outright deformed. Now, we get it. One version of Polo is supposed to be an undead, decaying, rotting zombie who is falling apart all the time, but even his character model looks subpar for zombie/corpse standards, and that's saying a lot. There are times when one (or more) of his fingers seem either too long or too short. There are times when he's blending into the background, furniture, or other characters for some reason. And for the second consecutive book—for some God forsaken reason—we need to be bombarded with nude or partially-nude images of characters who are technically underage. Fiction or not, it's still pretty disturbing and upsetting, to be honest.

Look, we get it: the human body—the human anatomy—is amazing and beautiful in so many ways. It's a miracle. We should celebrate it. We should be proud of it. But why do these underage characters have to constantly be shoved in our faces like this? The fact that it's usually in a grotesque form only adds to how unsettling and upsetting they are.

We'd rather these AI images not be in the book at all. They distract and detract from it.

Now, there's one last thing about this book that bothered us, and it's probably the thing that made us cringe the most: the way that the Haitians and Haitian zombies are portrayed and described.

Haiti is described as “Zombie Central” where “real zombies come from.” Haitian zombies are described as “single minded and robotic.” Meanwhile, Haitians in the book speak in broken English as if they're illiterate and unintelligent. This dialect is described in the book as being “Haitian Creole.”

Now, you could make the argument that Haiti is like a film set and that the main “Haitian” the protagonists speak to is actually a character in disguise (and, thus, fake). Gosh, all of that is a whole other can of worms.

But that doesn't change how racially insensitive these passages still read. We're not sure if the author even realized how insensitive these passages sound. Imagine being a Haitian from Haiti and reading passages like these. It's quite upsetting, to be honest.

Something that would have really helped this book is a beta-reader, someone who could give the author a second perspective. It doesn't seem like the author had gotten a second set of eyes to look this over and tell them that maybe some things aren't appropriate for a book of this nature. Like, maybe we should have a clear, discernible conflict and plot instead of throwing everything into a blender and hitting puree. There are so many otherwise-great ideas in here that seem half-baked or incongruent. There's a lack of harmony in this book. Nothing seems like it could be real or tangible. Nothing seems plausible. There's absolutely no sense that this could really happen. Again, there's no suspension of disbelief.

It's not like we haven't read books like this. We read With Love, From Planet B by Dr. Zaayim Salaam, a book about two lesbians who astral-project using a dream machine to figure out that men are toxic, women are awesome, and global warming is bad. We read Quantum Consequence by Mike Murphey in which the characters can travel to different universes named after different sitcoms like I Love Lucy. In that book, Amazon was the evil supreme deity, there was an evil leader named Leviticus Deuteronomy Humphollar whose catch-phrase was “Make America Stupid again,” and there was a Judy Garland android with a pet snake. And even that wasn't as weird or hard to believe as this book.

We've also read books about underage LGBT+ characters like Silas On Sundays by Joel Shoemaker and I Love You Just the Way You Are by Riley Rian. Heck, you could include Delicatus by this same author in that list. All of those were much better books. They had depth. They weren't as pushy, forceful, and in-your-face about all of this sexual stuff, and they weren't nearly as off-putting with their vulgarity, language, and content. Let's put it this way: there wasn't an underage character shooting intestines out of his %$# into a keyhole in any of those other books. They also didn't feature nightmare-inducing AI-generated art of half-nude people who are supposed to be minors or portray Haitians in such an upsetting light.

Now, after all that, does this book really not have any redeeming qualities? Well, no, this book has a bunch of redeeming qualities. Like we said before, there are a lot of great ideas in this book, they're just not well executed or put together in a harmonious way.

For example, Fluke's love for music really shines through, and the times when he can get a hold of a musical instrument are some of the best parts of the book. Clearly, the author's love for music shines through in this character.

There's some good world-building. For example, in Lavender Polo's world, a cellphone is called a “Handy.”

Next, there are some good passages here and there. One of our favorites was:

“He did kind of stink, but he also smelled of our childhood, that comforting scent of a
place so lived in that you don’t know it’s there unless you’ve been away from it. He held onto me really tight. He does love me, I thought.”

This short passage makes great use of the senses and touches on the chemistry between the characters.

There's also a pretty impressive scene which vividly describes the experience of encountering a large group of zombies:

“We crouched down behind the cars. The rumbling came louder and louder. Suddenly, the front door of the school lobby came flying off its hinges and crashed down the steps to the pavement. Zombies started to stream out. There’s this kind of grunting sound that a herd of zombies makes. They don’t breathe — they’re not alive — but there’s a wheezy, gasping sound of air being pushed past their vocal chords. You never forget what a zombie army sounds like. The way they move— no kind of order, randomly shambling about but somehow managing to go in the same general direction — the rhythmless pounding of their feet, you don’t forget that either. Or the smell. The smell! We were all choking...”

Again, this passage makes great use of sights, sounds, and even smells. It's one of the best descriptions of zombies we've ever read, we're not kidding!

We also loved the verse in which the zombies “were at the doors now. They were climbing on the roof. They were jumping up and down. They were dribbling on the windows.” The short, choppy, abrupt sentences give you the sense of how frantic and frenzied this moment is.

You also eventually get the sense that Kim has aspirations to be a filmmaker (as well as some experience) and is able to identify when things seem fake or artificial like in a movie.

Lastly, there are a lot of allusions to the Greek myth of the labyrinth including Theseus, Ariadne, and the ball of yarn. This is one of our favorite myths from all of mythology. However, it just kinda abruptly ends and we move on from it early in the book.

Look, this book was very ambitious and daring. It took a lot of risks and chances. It included some things that just didn't jive or sit well with us like AI-generated art, the inclusion of minors in an explicit story, and a less-than-savory portrayal of a group of people. We're entitled to our opinions and have the right to express the way we feel. We know that this author can do much better than this. We read Delicatus. That was an awesome book!

If you're curious about CLUB X: Zombie in the Fridge, you can check it out on Amazon.