The Waking Dark

The Waking Dark
by Robin Wasserman
New York: Alfred A. Knopf
2013
454 pages




This is a fairly new horror book for teens by author Robin Wasserman. I had not read any of her books and the premise of this one appealed to me, but in many ways it fell short of my expectations.

This book is full of action but it is really disjointed. It took me nearly 100 pages to figure out who were the main characters of the book. They are:

• Daniel Ghent: son of the crazy Preacher, survivor of a drug store shooting, brother of 8-year-old Milo
• Jule Prevette: niece of the local meth producer, seeking to get away from her life, survivor of a family stabbing incident
• Ellie King: a very devout teen who yearns to help her town but becomes a martyr instead, witness of the crucifixion of the church handyman by the religious leader at her church
• Jeremiah West: gay member of the football team, witness of an inexplicable hit and run accident of his friend, Nick
• Cassandra Porter: typical teenage girl until she dropped the baby boy she was babysitting out of a second story window and yet has no memory of doing it

The main catalyst for this story is a tornado which wipes out part of Oleander, Kansas. The disaster leaves the town shocked and people come together to clean up, but then the citizens begin to notice something strange. Although their cell phone and internet service is down, they had imagined that government volunteers and television crews would be descending on their town and helping everyone get back to normal. What happens instead is that their town is surrounded by supposed military personnel who enclose the entire town and tell everyone they are not allowed to leave "for their safety".

Tornado over Greensburg, Kansas in 1915

This is when things go drastically wrong. People begin to act in ways that are either uncharacteristic or more extreme, and never in a good way. They begin to commit crimes against each other, raiding stores, assaulting  and murdering people, looking for scapegoats such as Cassandra, who has escaped her nearby mental institution during the storm and has come back to hide near her home. Before too long, the people of the town have descended into the "dark" that has awakened in their minds and anarchy reigns. 

We don't learn what has caused the change until Cassandra and the doctor from her facility, who was captured, too, and thrown in the town's prison, escape with help from our other teenagers. The doctor is forced to tell the kids what she knows. They learn that they alone were given immunity to a drug called R8-G through their flu shots which, combined with a local natural condition that was aggravated by the tornado, is the perfect chemical weapon. The nearby facility was not a mental hospital/prison, as folks believed, but a chemical company's home base where they could experiment on the local population. Cassandra was injected with the drug, which led to hallucinations and caused her to black out when she committed her murder of the baby. R8-G causes people to commit atrocities to each other, quickly developing to a mass extermination of a population, I guess just to see what would happen. The company is keeping the town hostage while the drug continues to take effect, knowing that the end means that no one will survive.

I admire the teens who gradually find each other and band together to get out. They not only want to help themselves but they want to help the town. It is a small town and most people know each other. It is unfortunate that not all of our main characters could be saved, and the remainder feel and express real regret about that.

What I most disliked about the story was its lack of structure, its rambling prose that has trouble getting to the point. As I said before, Wasserman really took her time getting to the main action of the story and identifying the main characters and plot lines. We don't even learn about the fake government agency angle and the mind-altering drug explanation until Chapter 12, page 314. The insertion of "Oh, by the way" facts about the characters throughout the story was rather distracting and didn't help the story progress, or at best, just confused it. I don't necessarily object that we follow the story lines of several characters, but I think spending more time with them one at a time would have worked better. Also, focusing in on the main action instead of taking tangents all over the place would make a much tighter story. I think a good 100 pages could have been cut from the entire book by tightening up the story and removing tedious, superfluous details.

I would say this story is geared towards middle teens. It is a self-contained story, with no sequel-to-come feeling. While I didn't feel it was a complete waste of time reading it, I wouldn't put it on my best teen horror book list.

Monument 14: Sky on Fire

Monument 14: Sky on Fire
by Emmy Laybourne
New York: Feiwel and Friends
2013
217 pages



Well, if you read Monument 14 book and my earlier blog post, you will want to read this book which comes next. Compared to the first one, however, this one is more "fluff". That's not to say that it doesn't continue the horror. It just doesn't have as much substance in plot, character development, and descriptive passages as the first book. That's not necessarily a bad thing and I will explain further.

The action of the story has been divided into two viewpoints. We have Dean's, with Astrid, Chloe, Henry, and Caroline left in the Greenway. They are Blood Type O and, when exposed to the dangerous chemicals let loose in the atmosphere, they become raging monsters. With their concern for the smaller children, they have decided that it is better to stay and await rescue than endanger the others who left in the bus.

Dean's brother, Alex, travelling with Nico, Josie, Sahalia, Max, Ulysses, and Batiste, tells the story of the bus rescue crew. This is our first glimpse of the world outside the Greenway and it is scarier than we could have imagined. The bus doesn't haven't a clear windshield and seeing through the plexiglass makes the world look foggy. Someone has placed big, battery-powered floodlights along the highway, so it isn't completely dark. Despite the daytime hours, there is very little light coming from the sun which is obscured by dense clouds.  The roads are cracked, but a sort of path has been cleared for the bus to pass through. Cars are everywhere but there is something strange about them. A white fungus has eaten the tires and is spreading away from the cars. What is it?

Seeing the world so devastated makes it hard to remember that we are only on  Day 12 after the world ended as these kids knew it, less than two weeks.

Of course, we don't expect anything to be easy for either group of children. Back at the store, Dean and Astrid have new problems. Outsiders have seen the light from the opening when the bus went out and they try to get in. They take pity on some other strangers and throw food down to them from the roof, but this only leads to others coming and crashing into the store. The bus is taken over eventually by militant and paranoid older teens, who turn all of our small heroes out and leave them, first finding out where they came from. Of course, this spells further disaster for the Greenway kids and Alex and Nico know it. Somehow they have to walk the remaining 40 miles to Denver, all with masks and several layers of clothing, no food, blisters, and danger everywhere. And three of them are small children.

How do you eat in one of these things?

I said earlier that I felt like this was a "fluffier" book than the first one. Perhaps the main problem for me is that, because of the two story lines, we see more action rather than character development. I feel like I understand the main characters fairly well from the first book, but the new people they encounter just seem bad with no explanation or background behind them. We encounter only two kind helpers along the way to Denver: Max's Auntie Jean and an old man named Mario Scietto who takes the kids in for a couple of nights. I like more background and description in my stories, rather than so much dialogue, but since we are being told this story by the two brothers and they do not have the luxury of reflection time, I guess that could be too much to expect. The action is steady and tense, and I want to see these children come out okay.

Lucky for everyone, the bus kids make it to the Denver Airport and it really is a refuge and not just a rumor. The parents of some of the kids are found, and another parent helps with a daring rescue of the Greenway kids just in the nick of time. The book ends with the possibility of another book to come, since Josie is still separated from the rest. These kids have become a family, to themselves and to me, a fact reinforced by the change in Sahalia from a pouty girl who wants to prove how grown up she is, without really understanding what that means, into a big sister who cares for the others and wants to protect them. I want to see how things turn out for them. I will be watching for Book Three in this series.

Monument 14

Monument 14
by Emmy Laybourne
New York: Feiwel and Friends
2013
296 pages





Monument 14, on the YALSA Teens' Top Ten Nomination List, is a disaster book. The disaster happens in the first chapter, and two busloads of children, ages kindergarten through high school, find themselves in dire straits. This future society which offers many technological advances, including a nationwide computer network that keeps everyone informed and connected, does not hold up very long in the face of major natural disasters. Add some unnatural disasters, too, and we looking at the "end of the world as we know it."

We hear this story through Dean Grieder, a high school junior. He began his day as usual, catching the school bus, but little did he know, this day would be not be ordinary. Soon after the bus started its route to school, a hail storm unlike any other caused the bus to skid out of control and eventually turn over. Dean's younger brother was on his own bus ahead of Dean's, but that bus driver was fortunate enough to keep her bus upright, ramming it into a large superstore, Greenway. Dean's bus rolled over and kids were injured or not moving, and the bus driver was pinned under the steering wheel and appeared to be bleeding profusely. We see the that the bus is on fire, the bus driver is dying, and giant hail is pounding the bus--how will the kids get off the bus to safety?

This book takes place over the course of two weeks and the children's lives are changed dramatically. Mrs. Wooly, the brave bus driver and only adult on the premises, decided to leave to seek help at the nearby hospital and to find out what is happening. She instructed the children to remain in the store and stay together. This is the last they see her. Jake, a high school senior, is left in charge of the kids at the store, and most of the high schoolers are conscious of the needs of the small children, who are pedictably freaking out. There is a mini restaurant in the store and they are able to cook pizzas for everyone who is able to eat. Then another disaster hits--earthquake!

The entrance to the
 Cheyenne Mountain Complex, NORAD

One of the unnatural factors that contributes to this disaster is the chemical cloud that appears on the horizon. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is located near Monument and apparently they have been experimenting with dangerous chemicals. These have an immediate effect on everyone.  The news report the kids are able to get on the old television in the media section of the store reveals that the chemicals in the air affect people according to blood type:

• Type A: severe blisters on all exposed skin. With prolonged exposure, internal organs will hemorrhage.
• Type AB: paranoid delusions and hallucinations.
• Type B: long-term reproductive problems, but no immediate problems.
• Type O: dangerous, deranged, and violent behavior.

The kids realize that they need to seal up the store as well as they can, so they put up coverings over any exposed vents and doorways. Luckily the heavy metal security gates have been activated, which keeps the violent people out, but also they keep the kids from leaving.

Overall, this was an exciting story with plenty of action. I admired several of the characters and their reactions to the situation, including Dean, who takes on the cooking despite not really wanting to be tied to the kitchen; Alex, his brother, who is smart and innovative; Niko, the Boy Scout who shows his capability to deal with problems despite the dislike shown him by two of the high school boys; and Josie who, once she recovers from her shock, proves to be a welcome calming influence over the little kids.

Other characters behave in ways that I suspect would be typical of kids suddenly with no adult supervision. Brayden and Jake quickly discover the alcohol and pharmacy, choosing to get high rather than provide stable support for the smaller children. Sahalia, an 8th grade girl, becomes pouty that she isn't treated like a "big" kid, but then she doesn't contribute anything to show that she can act maturely. Her way of showing maturity is to flirt with the older boys in inappropriate ways and becoming a huge problem for the others.

One thing I did wonder about, though, was why there were no people in the superstore, Greenway. The kids were going to school before 8:00am, but the store was not open and there were no employees inside preparing for the day. If this store is similar to Walmart or Target, it would be open 24 hours, but this store is obviously not open until later in the morning. Extra people would have distracted us from the action of the story, but I doubt the realism here.

I recommend this book to all who enjoy a good end-of-the-world disaster story, but I would advise that it is more for teens 15 and older due to sexual content. Book Two Monument 14: Sky on Fire is out and I am excited to read it to find out what happens next.