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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
One of the best examinations of the human condition intertwined in a gripping survival story.
I really enjoyed the survival narrative, but I found that the sci-fi/ apocalypse tropes were shoved onto a story that didn't fit. I felt that detracted from the heart of the story.
Easy read, a bit long for my taste. Felt eerie to read about a deadly disease created in a lab from a book written in 2015.
I have mixed feelings on this book. I thought it was well written and I enjoyed several of the plot points. I am not sure I liked them all together. It felt like de Pena had too many ideas he wanted to fit it. In the final part everything came together to easily and the answers to perfect.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like this one. I just didn’t get very interested in it enough to want to keep reading. I’ll come back to it someday though.
I have always liked de la Peña's writing style, and it's in high form here. The plot did a little bit of a heel face turn at the end there - I think it might have benefited from more setup for the disease sub plot. The third part, on the island, should have been longer IMHO. I quite liked it, though. A step up from most YA published recently. 3.5
An engrossing read. This is a situation that's unusual in YA, and very fresh -- the teens working a cruise ship are put in a life of death struggle when the ship sinks after a major earthquake creates a tsunami. I found myself reading late into the night! De la Pena could do better with the female characters. While his male protagonist, Shy, is complex, the women are "beautiful" and mainly serve as objects of his admiration.
While de la Pena is trying to tackle a few too many issues in this book, I liked the characters a lot, and I think students would like it quite a bit, too.
Fast paced page turner. Easy to read and I enjoyed every minute of it. This is a young, young adult story IMO.
Shy is a HS kid who takes a summer job on a cruise ship to try to make some extra money to help his family - his single mother, sister, and nephew. They just lost their grandmother unexpectedly to a rare disease moving up the coastline and Shy doesn't like the idea of being away from his family. But the money is good and he won't be gone too long ... or so he thinks.
Shy's voice is strong and he is so likable that he's easy to relate to even if I didn't grow in Otay Mesa, CA near the Mexico border. I couldn't help but root for Shy and wished all the challenges he kept facing would just stop and the world would give him a break! It doesn't. He has to deal with the death of his grandmother, witnessing a suicide, surviving a tsunami out at sea, being shipped wreaked and much, much more.
If there's one thing Shy learns about himself through these harrowing experiences, it's that he's a survivor with a little bit of luck on his side. I didn't want the story to end when it did. There's too much left unknown - too many questions. I'm ready for the next book in this series to see what Shy finds when he returns to a home destroyed by the biggest earthquake on record and a contagious disease attacking residents up and down the West Coast.
Shy is a HS kid who takes a summer job on a cruise ship to try to make some extra money to help his family - his single mother, sister, and nephew. They just lost their grandmother unexpectedly to a rare disease moving up the coastline and Shy doesn't like the idea of being away from his family. But the money is good and he won't be gone too long ... or so he thinks.
Shy's voice is strong and he is so likable that he's easy to relate to even if I didn't grow in Otay Mesa, CA near the Mexico border. I couldn't help but root for Shy and wished all the challenges he kept facing would just stop and the world would give him a break! It doesn't. He has to deal with the death of his grandmother, witnessing a suicide, surviving a tsunami out at sea, being shipped wreaked and much, much more.
If there's one thing Shy learns about himself through these harrowing experiences, it's that he's a survivor with a little bit of luck on his side. I didn't want the story to end when it did. There's too much left unknown - too many questions. I'm ready for the next book in this series to see what Shy finds when he returns to a home destroyed by the biggest earthquake on record and a contagious disease attacking residents up and down the West Coast.
This book.
It is awful. I couldn't even finish.
The plot:
It was very boring. I can't say much, but it was giving me mixed signals.
The Characters.
They were so bad. It felt like they came straight from a template.
Most of the Characters where racist, sexist, classiest (is that a word?), and were not at all respectful to adults.
This book is by far one of the worst books I have read in the past few years.
*SPOILER*
At the start of the book, a man commits suicide and the main character fails to save him. The next chapter, the character barely feels sad about it. They mention it is passing and then go and make fun of the man and the situation with their friends.
It is awful. I couldn't even finish.
The plot:
It was very boring. I can't say much, but it was giving me mixed signals.
The Characters.
They were so bad. It felt like they came straight from a template.
Most of the Characters where racist, sexist, classiest (is that a word?), and were not at all respectful to adults.
This book is by far one of the worst books I have read in the past few years.
*SPOILER*
At the start of the book, a man commits suicide and the main character fails to save him. The next chapter, the character barely feels sad about it. They mention it is passing and then go and make fun of the man and the situation with their friends.