The End Games by T. Michael Martin is your typical zombie book with a few twists and turns thrown in. It took me three times to get into this book, but once I sat down and told myself to just do it, I had no regrets.The book, to put simply, is about a boy, Michael, whom is trying to protect his brother, Patrick, from the horrible, zombie infested world around them. Being the nerdy boys they are, Michael makes up The Game for Patrick. Michael believes The Game is keeping Patrick sane and safe.The most interesting thing in this book is Patrick's medical condition. The condition was not named, and I had no idea what it could have been (my inexperience in medical terms). Michael called it 'Freaking', and essentially, Patrick starts screaming and beating himself up. After that, he goes into a state of emptiness. He doesn't speak or move when he's in this state. Throughout the book, Michael is keeping Patrick from Freaking.The characters and their developments were done exceptionally well. I would have to give Marin an A+ on that. At the beginning, I was bored with Michael and Patrick (which is why it took me three tries to actually read the book). Then, of course, things happen and Michael turns into a hero and Patrick becomes an annoying little kid. Along the way they meet a solider and three lovely other people. The solider, Jopek, is your average jerk. Bobbie, Holly, and Hank are fairly swell. Hank only bothered me slightly. The moment Jopek jumped into the picture, I just straight up wanted him dead.The plot was nothing original. Every zombie novel has their own word for the zombies. Martin names them 'Bellows' because they bellow back words they hear. This would give a person the fright factor, but it was kind of annoying to me. Sure, I get the name fits the zombie type, but it was just such a silly name I couldn't take it seriously. Of course the whole point of the book was to survive and for Michael to be the hero. Typical zombie book.I feel like what really made this book come alive were the characters and the plot twists. That's the reason why I gave this book four stars. If it weren't for the plot twists, I would have given it three stars. They were so magnificent, and it would have been even better, if it wouldn't of taken about 200 pages to start getting good.Although Martin tried very hard with The End Games I still feel like he could have done better. I will be reading other books by him, if he ever publishes another. Well done, Martin, really. It's a fantastic debut novel