A tightly constructed YA mystery.
In Scott’s (Hear the Wolves, 2017, etc.) YA thriller, a teenager investigates the disappearance of his girlfriend.
When 17-year-old Molly Bates goes missing, the police immediately identify her 18-year-old boyfriend, Cobain, as the primary suspect. He’s a quick-tempered, weight lifting loner who dresses all in black and has a tattoo of a crow on his arm—and he genuinely has no idea what happened to her: “Molly is gone,” he thinks, panicked, “and they’re in here talking to me when they should be combing the streets, the woods, the mountains.” Molly and Cobain had been planning on running away together, but she never showed up to their planned rendezvous. Now he needs to figure out what happened to the love of his life—not only to reunite with her, but also in order to clear his name. The problem is that Molly is still very mysterious to him; she knows how to read and manipulate other people, but she keeps her secrets to herself. As Cobain questions the other people in Molly’s life—her parents, her friends—he can’t help but wonder whether he’s being manipulated himself. The story effectively leaps between Cobain’s past and present, although after a certain point, Molly also becomes a third-person point-of-view character, adding further complexities to the plot. Scott’s controlled prose perfectly summons the dramatic pitch of teenage thought; for example, in this passage, Cobain remembers his thoughts on the day of his and Molly’s first meeting: “I may have hated you for smiling at me because it opened this horrendous hope inside of me, and it was impossible to push it back into place. It was a hernia, that hope. A rabid animal that needed trapping.” Indeed, at times such emotional excesses may make it difficult for adult readers to take the novel seriously. Despite this, though, the book is a true page-turner with an enjoyable, serpentine narrative.
A tightly constructed YA mystery.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Garrett’s failure to produce any sympathetic characters makes her debut tough going.
Burglaries turn deadly for a group of spoiled teenagers.
Harper, Alex, Sarah, Paisley, Benji, and Gin come from similarly privileged homes. Their parents make up for a lack of commitment to their high school offspring by providing unfettered access to life’s material benefits: cars, clothes, and costly vacations. When getting drunk on booze filched from their folks’ well-stocked liquor cabinets palls, they invent an exciting new game. Each time one of the teens’ families goes skiing in Vail or snorkeling in the Bahamas, a designated member of the pack breaks into the unattended house and collects an assortment of trophies to be pawned for ready cash. The rules of the looting are strict. Only one member breaks into each house, nothing is to be stolen that can’t be replaced with insurance money, and nothing stolen from other members of the group. Harper adds one more rule: no stealing from her deaf sister, Maggie. After one full round of felonious fun, the wheels start to come off the crime spree. Sarah dies from a drug overdose. The police can’t decide if it’s an accident or suicide, but Harper is sure it’s neither. She thinks Sarah is too smart to overdose on her own and too conceited to kill herself. And since no one outside her little group exists for Harper, one of her fellow thieves must have killed her. Going to the authorities is a no-go because it would reveal the group’s role in the burglaries and spoil their chances of admission to an Ivy League college. So Harper and her chums sit around and wait to see if anything else bad happens. It does. Unfortunately, even Harper’s protectiveness toward her sister carries its own whiff of smugness.
Garrett’s failure to produce any sympathetic characters makes her debut tough going.Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-929345-30-4
Page Count: 206
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Well-drawn characters and playful twists keep this thriller fully charged.
This YA SF novel features a teen who must halt a virus that will kill two-thirds of humanity.
In Silver Oak, Maryland, Alice Sherman is a high school junior enjoying lunch near her campus basketball court. With her is Archie, her brother, a senior and science prodigy who likes equations more than his fellow students. Alice has been Archie’s one true friend since their mother left six years ago. Alice is about to catch up with Lalana Bunyasarn, her best friend, when a sudden “streak of electricity zaps through” her head. The agony intensifies until a Voice enters Alice’s mind, asking her, “Do you want this pain to stop?” The Voice then instructs her to go up to Bandit Sakda, a classmate playing basketball, and say that she loves him. Bandit is a beautiful Thai boy who’s talented and arrogant. Strangely, the Voice calls her Malice and says not to fall for him because “it’ll only make what you have to do later harder.” Eventually, Alice learns that the Voice belongs to someone from 10 years in the future who needs help saving humanity. A virus will be created by a person Alice knows that will wipe out two-thirds of the world population. Following the Voice’s directions can save everyone—except the person Alice is ordered to kill. Dunn’s (Star-Crossed, 2018, etc.) latest YA adventure offers increasingly tantalizing twists that gleam in succession like nested matryoshka dolls. Alice will charm readers with her quirks, especially her devotion to Chris Hemsworth of Marvel’s Avengers films. Tension builds as characters in the large cast, including crushworthy Zeke Cain and the brilliant Cristela Ruiz, become potential targets for Alice’s mission. Details about Thai culture add a splendid dimension to the narrative; for example, Bandit is pronounced “bun-dit” and means “one who is wise.” While the notion of a high school killer may not sit well with some, the author doesn’t use the device lightly. Her book takes a strong anti-bullying stance, doing so through an entertaining narrative that doesn’t resort to preaching. The author’s heart and craftiness make a sequel welcome.
Well-drawn characters and playful twists keep this thriller fully charged.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64063-412-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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