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    Rotters
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    Rotters
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    Rotters
    Audiobook16 hours

    Rotters

    Written by Daniel Kraus

    Narrated by Kirby Heyborne

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It's true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey's life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school.

    Everything changes when Joey's mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey's father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey's life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating.

    Daniel Kraus's masterful plotting and unforgettable characters make Rotters a moving, terrifying, and unconventional epic about fathers and sons, complex family ties, taboos, and the ever-present specter of mortality.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 5, 2011
    ISBN9780307941817
    Unavailable
    Rotters
    Author

    Daniel Kraus

    Daniel Kraus is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels and graphic novels. He coauthored The Living Dead with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. With Guillermo del Toro, he coauthored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus coauthored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. He has won two Odyssey Awards (for Rotters and Scowler), and The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 Books of the Year. His books have been Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults picks, Bram Stoker finalists, and more. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. Daniel lives with his wife in Chicago. Visit him at DanielKraus.com.

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    Reviews for Rotters

    3.5/5

    135 ratings27 reviews

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    • 4/5
      4.5 Stars
      I received an advance review copy of this book from Star Book Tours for review. I requested it purely based on the cover and title - I didn't know anything about it, but I'm kind of morbid so I hoped it would be as good as it looked. I wasn't disappointed.

      I didn't really know what to expect... zombies? I was hopeful, I'll admit. I love zombies, and if this one contained them, I had no doubt they would be awesome. But no zombies here, and the more I read, the more I appreciated this for the realistic story it was. This is the story of a mostly normal boy who gets thrust into this very unconventional situation and life.

      Here's the gist: Joey Crouch's mother dies, and he is sent to live with the absentee father he never knew, in a small town where hostility reigns, and Joey finds understanding in the most unlikely quarter one can think of - the Diggers... Grave robbers.

      I was hooked right from the start. The first part of the book, the fear and the surety and the paranoia, and specifically the specifying, drew me right into to Joey's life and I wanted to know more, and to find out what happens to this boy. His life goes is completely out of control and he has nobody and nothing at all he can rely on, and I found it fascinating how he dealt with - or failed to deal with - this new life he's got. His struggles were what kept me glued to the book. He was nothing if not real. His mistakes and compulsions frightened me on his behalf. I love an underdog, so I wanted him to persevere and prevail against those against him... and against himself.

      I loved the fact that the students at Bloughton High were realistic. They may have been a little cliche, actually, but teenagers ARE cliche. The jocks are jocklike, the snooty mean girl is snooty and mean (and a girl), the outcasts are outcast. But the devil is in the details with these kids, and I thought the portrayal was great. Just enough to read into them and make them more than cliche without needing it to be spelled out in big bold letters. I loved Foley. He may have been my favorite character. I wished that he was a bigger part of the book, actually.

      I also liked the Diggers. They were a varied and interesting group, and I loved their independent camaraderie. I love the history and the mostly noble feel of these men, and the sacrifices they make for this calling. I was fascinated by the way that the Diggers behaved among the dead, especially The Resurrectionist, as it was such a contrast to his behavior with the living. I would have loved more history and lore and more detail regarding the Diggers and their profession, but since this was Joey's story, and he's a 16 year old, I know why this would have been a mite tedious for him to relay.

      I appreciated the unflinching way that the dead and that death were portrayed. I liked that there was a certain reverence and respect there, even among these men out to pry valuables from someone's cold dead fingers. There was quite a bit of gore and grime and muck, among other foul things, so this is probably best not read by those weak of stomach or virgin of ears (so to speak). But I thought that these details added a lot to the book - a kind of reality and truth that it might otherwise be lacking.

      I really enjoyed the writing in this story, and many passages were gorgeously descriptive and evocative. I loved the contrast between these parts and the gritty and almost irreverent brutal honesty of the rest of the story. This one pulls no punches regarding bullying or loss, or about growing up and finding one's own path either. I really enjoyed it. I will definitely be on the lookout for more from this author.
    • 3/5
      After Joey's mom is killed in an accident, social services decides he should leave Chicago and go live with his dad whom he has never met. Upon arrival, he discovers that his father is the town outcast, known as the Garbageman, and lives in a tiny trailer with no room for Joey. Miserble at home and bullied at school for his lack of clothing, and the odd smell that follows him, he discovers what his dad's profession actually is, becomes his apprentice, and finds himself part of a shady underworld of secretive men.
    • 4/5
      This is a coming-of-age book that is light years away from other novels of that genre. This is the darkest story I’ve read in a long time, and I read a lot of dark stuff. Joey Crouch is 16 and a straight A student being raised by a single mother. He and his best friend, Boris, play jazz trumpet. It’s a comfortable life. His biggest worries are about not wanting to get up in the morning and being pushed to practice his music. Then his mother dies suddenly. His mother’s will states that Joey is to be placed with his father. The father he knows nothing about, the father who has had no contact with them, the father he had assumed was unfindable. But the father is found in a small town in Iowa. Joey is pre-enrolled in a new high school, told that the town would be idyllic, assured that he’d adjust just fine and that everything was taken care of nice and tidy and he’s put on a bus to Bloughton. Of course it’s far from idyllic. His father doesn’t meet the bus and Joey has to walk miles to a shack out in the country. His father isn’t home; when he does show up days later, it’s clear he doesn’t want Joey there. There is no food, no way to wash clothes, no telephone. The shack stinks. At school, both the students- especially the king of the jocks- and some of the staff decide instantly they don’t like Joey; he’s new, and he’s the son of a man that the entire town loathes and despises. And when he manages to scrape enough change together to call Boris from a pay phone, Boris is distant, belittles what Joey is going through and finally tells him not to call again. Life has gone from pretty darn good to pure hell for Joey. And it just keeps getting worse. His father is a grave robber. The all pervasive stink is from handling putrescent bodies. This is Joey’s new life. You think all this is bad? Wait. It gets worse. How Joey adapts to this new life is surprising. His new life takes many turns, none good, but it’s what he feels he must do to survive, to have someone, anyone, approve of him in this loveless landscape. The things he learns to do, the things that make up his new ‘normal’, are things that would make most people run screaming into the night. Decay, madmen, physical mutilation, starvation, poverty. His old self peels away, leaving just the core of Joey. This is not a book for the faint of heart. People who are bothered by vivid descriptions of death and decay should avoid it. There are problems- sometimes the book moves much to slowly. I can’t understand why Boris acted as he did and the author never goes back to that. But this is an oddly compelling book. I had to know what would happen next, for good or bad. The grave digging and the rotting corpses are minutely, almost lovingly, described. The author makes it clear through all this that when your world changes dramatically and you’re left without a support system, you’ll come to accept anything as normal, and that’s a scary thing to learn.
    • 3/5
      Wow. Kraus is a brave soul to bring up death in such a direct and visceral way. Great story about a literal descent into an underworld. I would certainly have given more stars, except that some of the protagonist's behavior was a little unpredictable without much explanation. It struck me as somewhat deus ex machina territory, rather than believable.
    • 3/5
      After Joey's mom is killed in an accident, social services decides he should leave Chicago and go live with his dad whom he has never met. Upon arrival, he discovers that his father is the town outcast, known as the Garbageman, and lives in a tiny trailer with no room for Joey. Miserble at home and bullied at school for his lack of clothing, and the odd smell that follows him, he discovers what his dad's profession actually is, becomes his apprentice, and finds himself part of a shady underworld of secretive men.
    • 3/5
      People tend to fixate on the grave digging when talking about Rotters. Yes, grave digging is an important aspect of Rotters, but it's not the main force. If anything, Rotters is about bullying, societal norms, and what it means to "fit in."

      Kraus is excellent at what he does and the reader is instantly grabbed by Joey's rather anxious thought process from the get go. I was cringing throughout the book, not so much at the very visual descriptions of corpses, looting, and coffin breaking, but imagining just how much Joey must have stank. I'm pretty anal retentive about hygiene, so I found myself wrinkling my nose as Joey made his way through the hallways at school and rubbing my hand on my jeans at the thought of Joey's lack of bathing - which was exactly what Kraus wanted.

      Rotters is repulsive and revolting, not because of the grave robbing - which is actually fascinating - but the cast and crew of characters. As creepy as Joey's dad and his grave robber friends may be in their rather singular and obsessive fixation, they're not as morally bankrupt as the high schoolers who torment Joey on a daily basis. Even Joey himself is a gray character at best, and although he's the main character, the reader isn't exactly warm and fuzzy about him. Sympathetic? Sure, but not exactly someone you'd squee over.

      All in all, a great and fascinating read. Kraus could have trimmed a good 50-80 pages towards the beginning of the end of Rotters (about Joey's rather meandering travels with Boggs), but a fixating read all the way.
    • 3/5
      Maybe I just need to read this book in longer bursts, because as a lunch-break read it seems to be moving very slowly. It's a good story, don't get me wrong, with great characters and development. I ordered this book after LOVING his newest book "Scowler" and wanted to try more by the author, but this one is a lot more toned down.
    • 4/5
      Narrated by Kirby Heybourne. Not just a scary book, far more than a horror novel...this is absolutely grotesque! The squirm factor is huge. Reader Kirby Heybourne puts understated relish into the more, uh, descriptive passages yet still brings out the story's tenderness. Be prepared to gasp out loud...
    • 4/5
      OMG. This was unlike any book I have ever read. It was dark and gets kinda psychological towards the end, so I would categorize it as Horror, but not a traditional horror. The narration also set the tone, but the parts with repetitions just seemed odd when listening.
    • 1/5
      Audiobook - Joey Crouch's mother dies so he has to move from Chicago to rural Iowa to live with his estranged, alcoholic father. His father refuses to feed Joey or give him money for food, despite having a giant safe full of jewels and cash. Joey has to sleep on the floor in a corner of the kitchen. Everyone at school bullies Joey, including his teachers and the principal. Then he finds out his abusive dad is a grave-robber in some kind of association of grave robbers, and Joey decides to become a grave robber too.I'm not sure there are words for how bad this was. Regardless of the stupid, unbelievable, and nonsensical plot, this book is sexist, racist, and homophobic. The antagonist is a physically- and mentally-disabled drug addict, who yet seems to be magically better at his job than all the other grave robbers. There is necrophilia and cannibalism. (And not in an interesting, "this happens in real life so we can't ignore it" kind of way; it was clearly just there for shock value and to make the story seem "scarier" than it was.) I am not one to be squeamish in any way, but all of the violence and gore and decomposition in the book was gratuitous and nonobjective. None of the characters were at all believable - Joey is a straight-A student who skips classes several times a week, a bully teacher is put in his place by a student acting like a know-it-all, Joey quits the school band because the cool guy bully (who is hooking up with a girl in the band) tells him it's not cool, a preacher tries to get grave robbers to stop grave robbing by helping them grave rob, etc. And to cap it all off, one of the nameless female sex objects says at the very beginning of the book that a social worker would be visiting Joey's father to make sure he took good care of Joey. This never happened and was never mentioned again, and if it had, the entirety of the book would not have happened. The author tries to make grave-robbers a "thing" by linking them to real people and groups like Leonardo DaVinci, Resurrectionists (people who dug up bodies for use in scientific experiments in the 1600s) and Incorruptibles (Catholic/Orthodox saints whose bodies supposedly never decompose). What do those have to do with digging up coffins to steal the valuable objects inside? Absolutely nothing. This book is all shock-value and no real value. And it's long as hell. Not at all recommended.
    • 3/5
      In Rotters Kraus seemed to want to address bullying and grave-robbing but, for me, the two themes didn't mesh into one cohesive exploration. As a story of fathers and sons, it read a little better. However, I was never able to connect with Joey Crouch, Joey's father, or the world and philosophy of Diggers. Joey was quite passive until all of a sudden he would do something completely out of character. Overall, the story just fell flat, for me.2.5 stars
    • 4/5
      I do a lot of commuting, so I decided to borrow this audio book from our local library. This was a very engaging book with very descriptive writing. I enjoyed the majority of the book and thought the characters were well developed. I felt extremely bad for Joey Crouch and found myself audibly sighing or wincing as the story of his life after his mother's death unfolded. The book got progressively dark and grotesque, which was not something that I expected. Although I knew the story had potential to be gory, I was a very unsuspecting listener! Overall, I enjoyed the book and was sad when it was over. I'm not sure I would listen to it again, though.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is a coming-of-age book that is light years away from other novels of that genre. This is the darkest story I’ve read in a long time, and I read a lot of dark stuff. Joey Crouch is 16 and a straight A student being raised by a single mother. He and his best friend, Boris, play jazz trumpet. It’s a comfortable life. His biggest worries are about not wanting to get up in the morning and being pushed to practice his music. Then his mother dies suddenly. His mother’s will states that Joey is to be placed with his father. The father he knows nothing about, the father who has had no contact with them, the father he had assumed was unfindable. But the father is found in a small town in Iowa. Joey is pre-enrolled in a new high school, told that the town would be idyllic, assured that he’d adjust just fine and that everything was taken care of nice and tidy and he’s put on a bus to Bloughton. Of course it’s far from idyllic. His father doesn’t meet the bus and Joey has to walk miles to a shack out in the country. His father isn’t home; when he does show up days later, it’s clear he doesn’t want Joey there. There is no food, no way to wash clothes, no telephone. The shack stinks. At school, both the students- especially the king of the jocks- and some of the staff decide instantly they don’t like Joey; he’s new, and he’s the son of a man that the entire town loathes and despises. And when he manages to scrape enough change together to call Boris from a pay phone, Boris is distant, belittles what Joey is going through and finally tells him not to call again. Life has gone from pretty darn good to pure hell for Joey. And it just keeps getting worse. His father is a grave robber. The all pervasive stink is from handling putrescent bodies. This is Joey’s new life. You think all this is bad? Wait. It gets worse. How Joey adapts to this new life is surprising. His new life takes many turns, none good, but it’s what he feels he must do to survive, to have someone, anyone, approve of him in this loveless landscape. The things he learns to do, the things that make up his new ‘normal’, are things that would make most people run screaming into the night. Decay, madmen, physical mutilation, starvation, poverty. His old self peels away, leaving just the core of Joey. This is not a book for the faint of heart. People who are bothered by vivid descriptions of death and decay should avoid it. There are problems- sometimes the book moves much to slowly. I can’t understand why Boris acted as he did and the author never goes back to that. But this is an oddly compelling book. I had to know what would happen next, for good or bad. The grave digging and the rotting corpses are minutely, almost lovingly, described. The author makes it clear through all this that when your world changes dramatically and you’re left without a support system, you’ll come to accept anything as normal, and that’s a scary thing to learn.
    • 3/5
      Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.Quick & Dirty: A novel written almost like the poetry of the dark romanticism genre, beautiful writing that pulls you deep into the dismal feelings and atmosphere of the book, not necessarily somewhere anyone would like to be for an extended period of time.Opening Sentence: This is the day my mother dies.The Review:The author is more of an adult writer given the vocabulary, content, and depth of the writing. There seemed to be an attempt to aim this more towards a teenager audience but I think he still didn’t quite succeed in that regard. The pace wasn’t fast enough and I think the content just started out too heavy in the first place. The storyline is too repetitive and the action is very choppy and interrupted. I didn’t feel let down at the end of the book, just at certain points during the book when it started to drag.This was a difficult journey for anyone to read, the combination of the depth and heaviness of the plot and the depressing lives of the characters just was rather ghastly to plow through, and the writing style contributed to that heaviness as well. There was value to that, as the reader definitely felt some of what the characters were going through just as they were being dragged through it as well, but it wasn’t an uplifting read, if that’s what you normally go for. There were obvious points in the story that could have gone uphill, and then you were pulled down further, along with Joey. Which is hard, for Joey and for the reader, but this also made it entirely about the story, not about the reader necessarily enjoying every minute of the story.Joey wasn’t a really intriguing character for me. At first, Joey attracts sympathy, and the reader is drawn to him in that regard. As a coming of age story, he is definitely immature and definitely coddled by his mother. Sympathy at his mother’s death is certainly deserved, but he keeps trying to compare his mother to his father, which is just a completely unfair comparison. As a sixteen-year-old, he should be able to take care of his own basic needs, and instead he just feels picked on, seeming more like a preteen, like the youngest child, than an almost adult. He is bullied at school, and just doesn’t go out of his way to counter that, despite being a straight-A student. When he finally decides to take matters into his own hands, he goes completely overboard. It just seems a rather dramatic change, along with the plot.This is a book that will get you thinking, but at the same time make you not want to think about it even while you are reading it and especially while you aren’t reading it, and especially if you have a really vivid imagination. Towards the middle of the book I actually began to think that it wasn’t too bad and started to redeem itself, but then I realized I was only halfway through the book. At that point things started to get pretty weird, much more what you would expect just given the entirely gruesome premise. I found some value in the book, especially at the very end, but to get to that point wasn’t exactly entertaining or enjoyable for me. It would come back to your expectations of a good book in the first place, and from reading the synopsis, you would most likely know if this is the book for you or not. For me, it wasn’t my book, but I did give it a chance and I’m not disappointed that I did.The main redemption for this book is implied to be the father and son relationship. After all, why would Joey’s mother hardly speak of his father, and yet take the time to write in her will that he should go to his father if she were to pass away? And that relationship never built up enough substance for me to feel invested in it, the way I needed to be for the ending of the book. Again, too much of the book relied on shock and gore for me, I personally would have appreciated this book more if the plot had been supporting the characters and relationships, rather than the other way around.Notable Scene:“How?” I asked one evening.It had been a few days since we had last spoken; the topic, though, had not changed. “A knife,” he said, looking at me for a moment before going back to reading the stack of newspapers that arrived each day in the mail. But now he was too distracted to read. He looked at me again, his eyes less scarlet than in the past, less hooded with anger. “I have a knife from Scotland,” he said softly, “with a blade so sharp there would be almost no pain.” The wounds of my mother’s ear: maybe it was the same blade, maybe it would be the last thing she and I shared.FTC Advisory: Delacorte Books for Young Readers/Random House provided me with a copy of Rotters. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
    • 2/5
      This was not my book. First off, the writing was good, great scene building, interesting premise, solid stuff. But... I hated the main character. Hated him so much I was glad he got beat up. Not because I felt he deserved it but because I saw it coming a mile away and have no sympathy when he didn't. It was like a bad horror movie. "Don't go in the locker room alone idiot. The jerkwad who's been making your life hell is going to jump you and kick your ass."
      So that was the real problem, with all the positives I normally enjoy, dark, gruesome plot, outsiders living on the fringes of society, I just didn't relate or feel any sympathy with the main character. I tried to get to the end. I really did. But halfway was all I could do.
    • 4/5
      After Joey Crouch's mother dies, he finds himself forced to move in with a distant father he's never met and knows almost nothing about - distant in an emotional sense, but also in the sense that he disappears for days on end without leaving Joey any directions or, say, food. The son of the town mystery/loser/guy who lives in a cabin in the woods with no phone, he finds himself rechristened "Crotch" by the kids at his new school and suffering daily abuse at the hands of his sadistic biology teacher. With nothing left to lose, he decides to sneak along on one of his father's disappearances, only to discover the truth that his father is a grave robber.

      As that last revelation ought to lead anyone who's read more than about 3 books to suspect, this book is about death. Granted, a lot of books are about death - the argument could perhaps be made that all of them are, insofar as life and death are intertwined. But Rotters is full of gruesome descriptions of corpses (bloated or wilted, in varying states of decay). Kraus doesn't shy away from the parts of death we-the-living prefer not to think about. This includes physical horrors ("coffin liquor", getting eaten by rats) and the horrors of the physical - the ultimate democracy of death. Ultimate in both senses, the last and the greatest. All of the embodied will rot away eventually. Joey, after he joins his father, seems to try to escape this fact by embracing it; to Joey, he and his father are already like the dead, they seem somehow separate from those who don't spend nights digging 6 feet under. Though his life is basically one big memento mori, he feels as though he is already not-living and so doesn't seem to grasp that he will die. From there, the book spirals further and further into horror.

      Kraus is a pretty great writer. His character-building was excellent, and the world of grave robbing that he created (...I hope?) was engrossing (heavy emphasis on the gross). Every time I thought the book couldn't get any more messed up, it did. The situations often felt - surreal? magical? - but I think that was only because I wanted them to be. I mean, there are some parts of the novel that I really wanted to be supernatural, but in the end there's little that's more natural than death. Really my only complaint is that the foreshadowing is occasionally a bit heavy, but I didn't feel it detracted overmuch from the story. I'd suggest that, if possible, you read this snowed in and alone somewhere cramped, because the breezy July evenings during which I read this never stopped being a shock to come back to when I put the book down.
    • 4/5
      Listened to the audio edition from Listening Library narrated by Kirby Heyborne.

      I'm having the hardest time figuring out what to rate this book. It's really well constructed and the audio production is excellent, but this is quite emphatically not my kind of book. Too gross, too depressing for too much of the time, too tense. Which of course are all the qualities that make this a fantastic horror novel - and Kraus gets bonus points for making the whole thing happen without going to the paranormal well. I will say the pacing is perhaps a little bit off - if I weren't listening to this, I'm not sure I would have made it through the first parts where you're just waiting for things to start happening. Certainly I was ready for the book to be over long before it was. Kirby Heyborne really sells the characters (none of whom are particularly likeable), particularly towards the end as the action picks up and I'm definitely glad I listened to this rather than reading a print copy. I've talked myself into going with a rating based on what i feel is the quality rather than my enjoyment.
    • 4/5
      Joey Crouch had never left Chicago until after his mother's funeral, when he was sent to live with the father he'd never met. When he arrives in his father's small town, he meets a man who doesn't want to take in a teenage son, doesn't want to interact with anyone, doesn't want to be a part of anyone's life. Because Harnett is a digger. A grave-digger. A grave-robber, actually. And Joey is going to find a way to enter the family business.

      A compelling, if sometimes gross, story; main characters are well-developed. Background characters--school bullies, for instance--are almost cartoonish in their one-dimensionality. Audio as good as rumored!
    • 4/5
      Dark and disturbing, but it's hard not to be when about grave robbing. A lot more relatable issues as well, such as bullying and loss of a parent. Not for those with a weak stomach. If you're like me and listen to books and eat in the car... don't.
    • 5/5
      After his mother is struck by a bus and killed, 16 year old straight-A student Joey Crouch boards a bus to Bloughton, Iowa, to live with his estranged father Ken Harnett. Known in town as the Garbageman, Harnett is neither an idea father nor roommate. His small house is unkempt, full of newspaper stacks and a strong odor; Harnett himself disappears for days at a time, leaving Joey with no food or money. After discovering a safe full of putrid jewels in his father’s closet, Joey follows Harnett one night, stowing away in the bed of his pickup with a disposable camera. Forgetting about the consequence of a flash late at night, Joey snaps a photo: “Everything was illuminated in one instant of motionless clarity: individual blades of tall grass, bugs caught in the air like thrown pebbles, the mirrored surface of the truck, my father, his stunned expression, the handheld wire cutter, the sparkle of multiple jeweled rings, and, clenched in my father’s fist, wearing these rings, a severed human hand. … My father is a grave robber.”Unlike most teens who catch a parent red-handed robbing a grave, Joey wants nothing more than to join his father. Though initially hesitant and refusing, Harnett begins to train Joey in the art of digging – burying Joey’s homework assignments or shoes deep beneath the earth hours before the start of school, lecturing on the art and history of grave robbing as Joey digs.Obviously not a hot topic in contemporary literature for any age, Kraus writes about grave robbing a little too realistically for comfort – all the while providing mystery, intrigue, and the intricate exploration of a powerful connection between father and son. At times, this subterranean novel is graphic, horrific, and downright gooey, but Kraus’ unforgettable writing strengthens the allure of this dark, multilayered world of bullies young and old, live and dead, and of fathers and sons, in a way that keeps the pages turning.
    • 4/5
      Rotters is one of the most disturbing and macabre books I've read. Although, the subject matter is gruesome the story is beautifully written. Joey Crouch, the main character, is sent to live his father in Iowa after his mother is hit by a bus and killed. Although, Joey is sixteen years old he has never left the city of Chicago. The story that follows is a haunting coming of age tale. I would recommend this book to fans of Death Watch by Ari Berk.
    • 4/5
      Joey Crouch is a straight A 16 year old living in Chicago with his single mom when she is unexpectedly hit by a bus and killed. This begins Joey's journey to rural Iowa where he is sent to live with the father he has never met. When he arrives, his recluse of a father with a questionable background at best is nothing like Joey expected. To make matters worse, he is immediately labeled as an outcast at school and his best friend from Chicago seems to be no help. One night, Joey decides to follow his father to see what he actually does, and he discovers that he is a grave robber. While this is initially disgusting to Joey, he soon is drawn into the mysterious life and becomes a digger himself. This amazingly written tale is filled with disgusting gore that makes the reader wonder if Daniel Kraus has been around this type of lifestyle. Definitely for the older YA set, and suitable for adults.
    • 5/5
      Joey Crouch is tortured at school by bullies after moving to live with the father he'd never met. The shack that his dad lives in smells horrible. Joey discovers his dad's job as a grave digger, and he is soon following his dad's footsteps. With this entrée into a world largely hidden from view of mainstream life, the book spirals deeper and deeper into darkness and despair. With his deadening sense of connection to humanity growing, a number of diverse characters and situations pull Joey closer to the brink of self-destruction. Twists and turns abound. This is an ambitious and far reaching text touching on topics including bullying, identity, family, death, and redemption.
    • 3/5
      Let me make one thing perfectly clear: "Rotters," by Daniel Kraus (Delacorte Press, 2011) is not for every YA reader. Well, what book is? But this novel is filled with enough bloated corpses, squirming maggots, predatory rats, severed appendages, and noxious odors to choke even the most jaded fan of the horror genre. You get my drift. Okay, are you still with me? Good, because you're in for quite a ride. Sixteen year-old Joey Crouch is a straight-A student living with his single mother in Chicago. He plays the trumpet, has one good friend, and pretty well succeeds at staying under the radar of high school bullies looking for a soft target. That all changes when his mother dies in a tragic accident--a death chillingly foretold in the book's prologue. He is sent to a small town in Iowa to live with Ken Harnett, the father he never met. Harnett is a surly brute of a man with a rancid stench so bad that the locals have dubbed him The Garbage Man. He is also rumored to be a thief. The new kid at school soon finds himself burdened not only with his father's noxious odor but his reputation as well. Mercilessly bullied by students and one sadistic teacher in particular, Joey has no choice but to embrace his father--and his father's grisly trade. Harnett is no garbage man, but he is a thief. A grave robber, to be exact. With that, Joey enters a brotherhood of loosely organized, solitary men who view their calling as noble, in the tradition of the resurrection men--19th century grave robbers hired to steal bodies for use in medical school dissections. It's a shocking premise, but in its heart this book is about the bond between a father and his son, taboos, and most of all, mortality. Perhaps no one but Kraus could bring such lyrical beauty to descriptions of death and decay. I'd been wanting to read and review this book for a while; I've long been a fan of the macabre, from Edgar Allen Poe to Stephen King. Kraus is a Chicago author, and "Rotters" had generated a good amount of buzz. When I read that the Audio Publishing Association had awarded "Rotters" (Listening Library and Random House Audio) the 2012 Odyssey Award for the producer of the best audiobook for children and YA, I knew I had to give it a listen. I listen to a lot of audio books, and in my experience the reader can make or break a book. This book's reader, Kirby Heyborne, really delivers, giving each character an individual voice and real emotional depth. If you have a strong stomach and have a taste for books that are dark, creepy, and shocking, you should give a "Rotters" a read--or a listen. This review was originally published in the April 15, 2012 edition of The News-Gazette.
    • 5/5
      This book is unlike any other that I have read. I thought about grave robbers as a long ago event, certainly not a current topic. But this book is so much more than the fetid story of grave robbers. It is a highly intriguing tale about Joey Crouch and the unbelievably horrible life he lives. He endures taunting and brutality and somehow retains an interest in subjects to please his deceased mother. Joey's taunters are basically one dimensional, but the other characters are intricate and well developed. Joey is an amazing adolescent who thrives despite the chaos he endures.The story is full of conflict: man vs. man; man vs. self and man vs. nature. This book was hard to put down because the story was such a roller-coaster. It was a great read and I look forward to other novels by Daniel Kraus.
    • 5/5
      Joey Crouch has a pretty normal life. He lives with his mom and plays trumpet in the band at school. His whole world is turned upside down when she dies in a tragic accident and he is forced to lived with his estranged father, Ken Harnett, in a rural town. Life in this new town couldn't be more different. Teasing and bullying are common occurrences and he finds himself at the bottom of the pecking order, mostly because he lives in squalor with his father who is commonly known as the trash man. Their relationship is shaky to say the least and they don't communicate well. After a while, it becomes clear that Harnett makes his money stealing things from graves. After the initial shock, Joey wants to learn about this new trade that opens the door to a new world full of strange, grotesque characters, horrific sights, family secrets, and himself.I had never heard of this before getting an advance copy and still have not seen this book in a store. It's surprising because this is a great read that can easily appeal to both adult and older teen readers. Rotters is a unique and very dark coming of age story that centers around the distasteful profession of robbing graves. I've never read a book on this subject, but I figured it would be pretty disgusting and intense. It delivered that in a big way. Decaying corpses, rats, foul odors, and maggots are described in the most loving and beautiful detail. The grave odor that permeates Joey's life is so well described that I feel that I can practically smell it as I read. Daniel Kraus' masterful writing almost leaps off the page.The other amazing thing about this book is the characters. Each one is richly imagined and after reading the novel, these characters still stayed with me. Joey in particular is a wonderful character that changes drastically throughout the course of the book. At first, he's consumed with grief over his mother's death and strives to get straight A's in school. Then he moves to Bloughton and is constantly bullied because of his father and the stench that follows him. I really felt for him because of both the bullying at school (by teachers and students) and the horrible treatment from his father. He reacted weakly to the abuse and seemed to accept his lot in life. During the second school year, his demeanor changes. His confidence grows and he lashes out in an incredibly satisfying way. He leaves to learn from another digger, but this one is an enemy of his fathers. After the exciting finale, Joey is just himself. He comes into his own with some scars and aches, but with his own sense of self instead of what others try to push onto him. Even though it was encased in gruesome detail and grave robbing, Joey still experienced what most of us experience in our transition from child to adult. Rotters is an exceptional young adult book that isn't afraid to delve into dark, gruesome territory. I would only recommend this to people that are fans of horror and those that aren't squeamish. I will definitely read whatever Daniel Kraus writes next.
    • 4/5
      I am amazed by this book. I am also grossed out, absorbed, heartbroken, intrigued, sorrowful, uplifted, horrified and above all completely and totally entertained. I guess I didn't read the blurb for this one before I picked it out because for some reason I thought erroneously that this book was about zombies. I couldn't have been more wrong but I am glad I misunderstood because I am not sure I would have chosen to read this book about grave robbers. Yet "Rotters" is a book that will not leave me for a long time. Perhaps many years from now I will be contemplating my own demise and remember this book. Because this book was so dark and so different from the other books I've read, I think it will be remembered. On the surface "Rotters" appears to be a disgusting story of people who dig up graves in the night and rob the bodies of jewelry and antiques to be sold on the black market. The stench of decaying corpses cling to these people and showers can't even remove the scent. There should be nothing redeemable about these vile people. Right? Maybe. Maybe not. Daniel Kraus makes human these Diggers. As with most any human, there is both good and bad in them. At the forefront of this story is a boy named Joey who was raised by his mother and never knew his father. After her untimely death, Joey learns of his father and is sent to live with him. The house is a shack and disgusting to boot. The man how lives there, the man who is Joey's father, Harnett is even more so. This is the point where the story sucked me in and made me really feel for Joey. He has just lost him mother who meant the world to him. His father is gruff and dirty. He has no bed to call his own and sleeps on the kitchen floor of the filthy home. He smells, everything smells. Because he is scrawny, pimply face, and smells, he is immediately the main target for bullying at school. He has no friends. His old best friend won't take his calls. He hasn't a dime to his name. Holy crud, I felt sorry for this boy. I wanted to grab him right out of the pages and mother him. Then he and his father start to communicate. He finds out that his dad may not really be a garbage man at all. And I can't tell you a single other thing about the plot of this book because you really need to experience it all for yourself. I will say it is icky and gross. I know more than I ever needed to know about human decomposition. Yet every page is riveting. The relationships are believably and truly do make the book as wonderful as it is. I find it hard to believe that this book is marketing to the YA genre. It read as adult in so many ways. There is vulger language on ocassion but no sex...but graphic things are done with the deceased. Other things are tiptoed around, hinted at, shocking. On the other hand, "Rotters" is a coming of age story, not unlike "The Outsiders" in some ways, although this one is graphic and macabre. Teens will relate to the bullying and the desire for revenge. The language is easy to understand and probably for the YA reading level. Its also a beautiful and descriptive language. Its that wonderful writing ability that makes the grapic scenes so grapahic. You can see in your mind exactly what the characters are seeing, and that is often quite unpleasant. Athough high school classes would probably never touch a finger on this one, what discussion it would bring about in a classroom setting. I would love to be involved in one and hear what others think...what they take away from this book. Why not five stars? There is a turning point in the book which almost lost me. Things at school reach a climax and Harnett and Joey go away on a 'job' where many other diggers are. While important to the story, I felt a little bit of disconnect and lost a little interest. The story does come back up and the ending moves along rapidly and is very exciting and the resolution is fit for the book. Then there is almost a long epilouge and at that point I wanted to know more....Joey supposedly resolves a lot of things but I wish it was more clear how he 'came back to himself'. Still maybe this is best decided for yourself. If you think you can stomach it, I highly encourage you to read this one.