Orphan Black meets Lord of the Flies in this riveting new thriller from the co-author of the Virals series.
It's been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, a strange man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later, she wakes up in a clearing just outside her tiny Idaho hometown—alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the horrifying crime erased.
Across the valley, Noah just wants to be like everyone else. But he’s not. Nightmares of murder and death plague him, though he does his best to hide the signs. But when the world around him begins to spiral toward panic and destruction, Noah discovers that people have been lying to him his whole life. Everything changes in an eye blink.
For the planet has a bigger problem. The Anvil, an enormous asteroid threatening all life on Earth, leaves little room for two troubled teens. Yet on her sixteenth birthday, as she cowers in her bedroom, hoping not to die for the fifth time, Min has had enough. She vows to discover what is happening in Fire Lake and uncovers a lifetime of lies: a vast conspiracy involving the sixty-four students of her sophomore class, one that may be even more sinister than the murders.
There's a reason I didn't enjoy reading Lord of the Flies way back in high school. I didn't need a book to tell me kids could be dicks.
I picked up this book/series because I loved the author's last series, Virals. And, yeah, the high school drama in those books didn't paint teens in a highly favorable light either, but it played mostly in the background. Plus, the synopsis for this series sounded like teens unmasking a top secret conspiracy, one that held their lives in the balance. Sounded super cool.
And it was, at first. The conspiracy, digging behind the scenes, piecing clues together was all riveting stuff. And the mystery doesn't let up even through cataclysmic events. But it seems like that is taking a back seat to high school drama, politics, bullying, revenge, and power struggles. Joy.
I liked the narrators, Min & Noah, and their different views. I was even impressed by their flipping the stereotype of strong dude and meek damsel. I wasn't big on the romantic tension, but it's expected at this point, so whatever. But then everything goes to hell and so does my enthusiasm.
If the next book weren't readily available, I don't think I would be continuing. I'm just not big into kids acting like assholes in my fiction.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
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