Rotters

What does it mean to be dead?  "Rotters" by Daniel Kraus has the answer.

Secrets are best left buried next to the skeletons in the closet, but it's hard to keep them down there when the source of your livelihood is buried six feet under, locked in a wooden box, and nestled between the pale white ribs of the ones best left in the closet.  The order of the grave robbers is an old and ancient one that's gasping its final breaths when two unexpected things happen:  Joey's mother dies, and a colleague commits the worse sort of heresy possible.  There's beauty in death, if you're around it long enough, as pale and as cold as it is.  The trouble is, if you accept death as your love, you're halfway there yourself.  Joey's drowning in a sea of bones, rats, and lies that are older than he is because nothing will ever be as it seems when you're the Resurrectionist's son.

This is not a book about zombies.  This is not a book about romance. Well, there is love, but it's not romance, really. This is not a book about happiness.  In fact, Daniel Kraus makes Lemony Snicket look like a Care Bear. This is not a book that has any definable parameters.  This is not a book that one raves and gushes about, because in a way, it's too sacred for that.
       This book does not have any definable parameters because it is so many things.  At first, it seems like a realistic fiction book, in which a boy's mother dies and then he has to go live with his horrible father and go to a horrible school where everyone picks on him, including the teachers. For a while there, you think that he's going to do alright, get the girl of his dreams, rise up from his underdog status, and show those bullies their proper places, etc. like in a lot of other books.  Then, you realize that you still have 3/4's of the book to go, you haven't even figured out why the name of the book is 'Rotters,' and that there's a picture of a shovel sticking out of the dirt next to a tombstone on the cover.
       After you get out of the part where it's all a nightmarish high-school fantasy, it gets pretty twisted.  Excuse me, really twisted.  But, that is the most fantastic part about it. In the beginning it's pretty tame.  They rob graves, big whoop.  It's pretty interesting how Joey's interactions at school are directly influenced by his 'graveyard shift' (excuse me, I had to).  He is one of the most dynamic characters I've seen, and even as he steps away from being what fundamentally made him Joey in the beginning of the book and he stops being recognizably Joey, he is still Joey.  It's rare to find a character that changes so absolutely, completely, and believably over the course of one book.
      The high school drama also serves to anchor the book.  In the end of the book, when there is no more high school stuff and everything gets dramatically more weird, the book gets almost dreamy, because there's nothing there that you can really connect with.  Yet, it's better for that.  The book becomes more because true understanding of the real situation lies on the peripheral of your understanding.  It doesn't make any sense now, while you're reading this, but it makes a lot of sense while you're reading the book.  Which, I hope you do, because it's a fantastic book.
     The whole thing with the dudes chasing after the dad because he robbed the grave after he saw the rat king is a bit absurd, though.  If I saw an evil omen, I would've gone back to my house and sat there for a while and thought some before I jumped the gun and did.  It seemed completely out of everything we knew about the Resurrectionist's character.
      Speaking of character, the characters are very.  As you know by now, I like a decently sized cast of personable characters.  This book has two main characters--Joey, and his dad, though, I would suppose you'd be amiss if you didn't count Baby as a main character, so say you have three main characters--and really, only a few of them converse at a time.  Half of the characters in the book are repulsive, and the other half are reclusive.  They are personable,if personable means they have their quirks, but they are a very odd sort of personable.  None of them are loud or overly sarcastic, which is more my style, but most are quietly cynical. And then there are, of course, the few people who devote themselves to a cause with a whole-hearted passion, which I don't really understand, but I almost can, per the style of the writing.  The only person you really connect to is Joey, and the only one you really, really like is Ike or Joey's father's mentor.  Yeah.  But everyone's personality is fantastic, even if you hate them.  Each are their own person, and you forget that they are merely characters in a book.
       The world they live in is vivid, if not bright.  A good book will keep you anchored by not moving to new places every other page.  Many places in this book are revisited and reused, so it feels like you've actually been somewhere, not skimmed by it. That doesn't make any sense either. Excuse me.
      In this day and age, people are easily offended, so I'm going to tell you that there is a bit of a religious undertone.  He doesn't go to church, but there's a dude that comes around frequently telling him that his soul needs to be saved.  And then there the two-fingered Jesus.  I mean, I don't know what people's boundaries are, and I am an open-minded person who doesn't really get people's boundaries, so I thought I would just put that out there.
      And so, now to the ending.  All I'm going to say is that it is a pretty open-ended ending, one that's fantastic and creepy and mysterious and brings up more questions than it does answers.  It's the sort of ending that leads to a sequel, in most cases, but if anyone makes a sequel to this I will personally bring them to their grave because perfection should not be messed with, and, anyways, what could be a better resolution than that?  So, for once, I am pretty pleased with an ending. That must be some sort of momentous event, no?
        The question that this book is supposed to answer, as I posed up in the beginning--'what does it mean to be dead'--is never answered outright, but you're given enough information to form your own answer.  For me, I think that the moment you die is the moment you stop worrying about whether you're truly alive.

http://danielkraus.com/rotters.php  Watch the video by Vorvolakas (that's a band that plays a significant part in the book).  It's pretty creepy, once you get into.  And, I think they're chanting 'pain will not escape you,' or something of that kin, but I'm too sure.  His other books look pretty cool, too.