DUSK

Weak science fiction about two kids who may or may not be able to bond. Dusk, a feral girl bred with hawk genes who believes she can fly, lives in a cage in a secret military laboratory. During a fire, conflicted (and alcoholic) guard Curtis frees her and she’s on her own for the first time. She lives for two years in the nearby deserted town that was forcefully evacuated lest anyone discover her. She hunts there at dusk; wild rats hunt at night, dogs during the day. Curtis’s son Jay discovers Dusk while he’s in a bad state himself, obsessively traumatized by a beating from a peer. The narrative voice changes confusingly often—sometimes in the middle of a paragraph—between third-person omniscient and third-person limited (of Dusk, Jay, Curtis and a super intelligent rat trying to take over the world). The writing is choppy, riddled with minute but irritating inconsistencies. For better science fiction about kids with avian genes, see James Patterson’s Maximum Ride . (Science fiction. 10-12)