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3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
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.
Ended up liking this a lot better than I initially thought I would. Looking forward to the sequel.
This was a surprisingly fun read. Cruise ships sinking, tsunamis, belligerent sharks, some scary red-eye disease, and mysterious islands, what's not to like?
I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series.
I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series.
I put off writing this review for weeks, mostly because I didn't want to hurt Matt's feelings or admit to my fellow fans that I just didn't like this one. I love every other book of his, and didn't know this was going to be such a departure from his other work. It was just *too much*. I liked the main characters, and could have seen the interactions with them on the cruise ship be the only focus of the novel. Class issues, responsibility, outside relationships, trust, inadequate health care, figuring yourself out...all could have been its own book. Too many other sensationalist layers are thrown on top of it, making my suspension of disbelief impossible to sustain. Men in black stalking him? Why does my dad have your picture in his pocket? A terrible terrible life threatening storm? Pseudo Ebola? Apocalyptic earthquakes ALL OVER the entire west coast? Tsunami? Not enough lifeboats? A chandelier that falls on the bad guy? Fire? Sharks that ram the bottom of the boat? People with guns? Secret Big Pharma island? Napalm? Mysterious and wise black man with surprising skills? It was all just too too much. By the time the shark launched itself onto the life raft, I had had it. I just wanted to finish the stinking book to see how Shy was going to get out of it. Instead, Matt decides this is a great time to join the ranks of the series writers, and leaves us hanging.
I still want to support him as a writer, but the kids I will recommend this book to are mostly pretty different than the kids that I recommend his other books to. Looking for nonstop, unrealistic action with the promise of a sequel in early 2015? This is the book for you.
I still want to support him as a writer, but the kids I will recommend this book to are mostly pretty different than the kids that I recommend his other books to. Looking for nonstop, unrealistic action with the promise of a sequel in early 2015? This is the book for you.