A promising premise that begs for more focused character development.
A troubled Vietnam vet kidnaps two teenage girls in this fast-paced thriller, the third in Wilson’s (Never Fear Christmas Terrors, 2015, etc.) series.
Cedar Falls, Iowa, is supposedly the safest town in America, but all is not well in this normally sleepy burg. Residents are still coming to grips with a homecoming game massacre that left two dead at the end of 2004, not to mention the relatively recent murder of high school student Jeremy Gustaffsson by the serial killer Pogo, who’s still at large. Then Heather Crompton and Kelly Carter, two beloved Sky High cheerleaders, vanish. Readers know, although the townsfolk don’t, that Heather’s uncle, a disturbed loner named Declan Hunter, has trapped the girls in an underground bunker. Fortunately, fellow student Tad McGreevy has a special talent: he has vivid dreams that allow him to “see” the actions of evildoers, which may help locate the girls. Meanwhile, other residents of Cedar Falls must deal with their own dramas, such as Janice Kramer, who’s pregnant with Gustaffson’s baby, and high school senior Sean Carpenter, who must make a difficult decision about the fate of his comatose wife. It’s a lot of action for a novel that clocks in at less than 250 pages, and Wilson is mercilessly efficient in resolving various conflicts, but it often comes at the expense of character development. The idea that Hunter, a PTSD-stricken veteran, might commit a horrible crime in a misguided attempt to assuage his loneliness is intriguing, but there’s little attempt to plumb his or any other characters’ psyches. Instead, Wilson sprinkles the novel with staccato strings of words in lieu of more insightful writing: “Declan Hunter’s tone was plaintive. Mournful. Robotic”; “Melody had been fine one moment. Happy. Energetic. Healthy. Full of life.” The book has all the elements of a compelling mystery and an inventive paranormal twist, so it’s unfortunate that minor characters’ problems distract from its more intriguing elements. However, one must credit Wilson for treating her teenage protagonists with respect, as they face down adult dilemmas and resolve them with maturity and grace.
A promising premise that begs for more focused character development.Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9824448-2-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Quad City Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Aspiring filmmaker/first-novelist Chbosky adds an upbeat ending to a tale of teenaged angst—the right combination of realism and uplift to allow it on high school reading lists, though some might object to the sexuality, drinking, and dope-smoking. More sophisticated readers might object to the rip-off of Salinger, though Chbosky pays homage by having his protagonist read Catcher in the Rye. Like Holden, Charlie oozes sincerity, rails against celebrity phoniness, and feels an extraliterary bond with his favorite writers (Harper Lee, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Ayn Rand, etc.). But Charlie’s no rich kid: the third child in a middle-class family, he attends public school in western Pennsylvania, has an older brother who plays football at Penn State, and an older sister who worries about boys a lot. An epistolary novel addressed to an anonymous “friend,” Charlie’s letters cover his first year in high school, a time haunted by the recent suicide of his best friend. Always quick to shed tears, Charlie also feels guilty about the death of his Aunt Helen, a troubled woman who lived with Charlie’s family at the time of her fatal car wreck. Though he begins as a friendless observer, Charlie is soon pals with seniors Patrick and Sam (for Samantha), stepsiblings who include Charlie in their circle, where he smokes pot for the first time, drops acid, and falls madly in love with the inaccessible Sam. His first relationship ends miserably because Charlie remains compulsively honest, though he proves a loyal friend (to Patrick when he’s gay-bashed) and brother (when his sister needs an abortion). Depressed when all his friends prepare for college, Charlie has a catatonic breakdown, which resolves itself neatly and reveals a long-repressed truth about Aunt Helen. A plain-written narrative suggesting that passivity, and thinking too much, lead to confusion and anxiety. Perhaps the folks at (co-publisher) MTV see the synergy here with Daria or any number of videos by the sensitive singer-songwriters they feature.
Pub Date: Feb. 4, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-02734-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: MTV Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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