Author- Emmy Laybourne
Published- June 5th, 2012
Feiwel & Friends
294 pages
Swapped for on PBS
Your mother hollers that you’re going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don’t stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don’t thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not—you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner. Only, if it’s the last time you’ll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you’d stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus. But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran.Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong. In Emmy Laybourne’s action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world—as they know it—apart.--Goodreads
If you are the type of person that skips through all of the review to find out the verdict, I will save you some time. GO BUY THIS BOOK! I was quite skeptical that I wouldn't enjoy this book. It seems that nowadays, new concepts that are "fresh" and exciting are not carried out well and just fall flat. That was not the case with Monument 14.
I absolutely adore this cover. It was a great representation of the various age range in this book. It is completely engrossing and I found it especially neat after reading the book because I was able to match up characters to bodies on the cover.
Mrs. Laybourne did a fantastic job with diversifying the characters. In most books, it is hard to distinguish and individual voice and they tend to just blend. In Monument 14, I could easily get to know each character on an individual basis, even in a group setting.
I think it was great that a female author decided to take the voice of a male character. She did a great job with Dean. I loved his awkward, quirky attitude and his "mother hen" mentality. The charisma between him and each of the characters was great.
There was plenty of action in this book, but at the same time I felt like they took their time in the superstore as a vacation in a way. There wasn't really much discussion on rationing, preserving water, or other survival tactics. It just seemed like they could live forever in there, which they had to know was not the truth. Lots of water was wasted on nonessential things like bathing a dog. I guess my OCD came out a bit when I read that they dumped all that water away. I may have cringed just a bit ;)
The book ended with a bang! It was such a different ending from what I was expecting that it totally threw me for a loop. I am dying to read book two and continue on with the fabulous story that Mrs. Laybourne has created!
Overall, GO BUY THIS BOOK! It may have been a little bit unbelievable, but hey, who doesn't need a bit of fluff in their life?
