Kearsten's Book Club Wrap-Up: Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

This past Monday night, we rowdy book clubbers discussed the creepy and awesome apocalyptic thriller, Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne.

Trapped inside a chain superstore by an apocalyptic sequence of natural and human disasters, six high school kids from various popular and unpopular social groups struggle for survival while protecting a group of younger children.

WE LOVED IT.  

The discussion was, as usual, all over the place.  We spent a lot of time on the disasters - deadly hail, bus crashes, earthquakes, and toxic smoke - and how we might (or, in Kearsten's case, might not) have survived.  We also talked about the unsettling interactions with adults in the story, and how the teens handled themselves and the younger children. 

Kearsten's favorite part of the meeting was when we examined the ways in which the teen characters reacted to their situations.  Some distanced themselves, whether on purpose by hiding from the others or unintentionally by going into shock, while others tried to ignore the situation by drinking or using drugs.  Most of us were pretty disgusted by the characters who used drugs and alcohol, primarily because it meant they were leaving the younger children without support when they needed it most.

The teens in book club are awesome.

Here's a pic of some of the questions submitted by book clubbers! 

Already read Monument 14?  Then try one of these teen-endorsed read-alikes, which also focus on themes of missing parents, disasters, and survival!

Gone by Michael Grant. In a small town on the coast of California, everyone over the age of fourteen suddenly disappears, setting up a battle between the remaining town residents and the students from a local private school, as well as those who have "The Power" and are able to perform supernatural feats and those who do not.

The Enemy by Charlie Higson. After a disease turns everyone over sixteen into brainless, decomposing, flesh-eating creatures, a group of teenagers leave their shelter and set out of a harrowing journey across London to the safe haven of Buckingham Palace.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner. Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he must work with the community in which he finds himself if he is to escape.

No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz. Teens Shay, Marco, Lexi, and Ryan, quarantined in a shopping mall when a biological bomb goes off in an air duct, learn that in an emergency people change, and not always for the better, as many become sick and supplies run low.

After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

Welcome to a nineteen post-apocalyptic/ dystopian worlds.  What does society look like after disaster or after Utopia goes wrong, as it always seems to do? Each of the YA authors in this anthology has answered that question, created characters you won't forget, and crafted story lines that will haunt you, leave you wondering if these things could truly happen, because each author's story convinces you that they can--and more disturbingly, very likely will. This anthology is stunning in its diversity, plots, and sheer good writing.

In "Faint Heart," a group of young men, some trained, some forced by poverty, fight in a maze to win the hand of the queen, who just happens to be a clone.  In "The Segment" the evening news turns into carefully scripted and acted shots that twist the concept of "reality" as much as it does reality TV to the extreme. "Rust with Wings" introduces a terrifying plague of bugs that devour metal, including teeth fillings and pacemakers, that devastate the Southwest and challenge one teen and his family to survive the insects' deadly descent.  "All I Know of Freedom" gives us the story of one orphan who escapes the family she has been sold into and gives her the chance to escape a crumbling Earth in a rocket ship manned by a group of kind but fanatic cult leaders and followers.

I haven't finished all nineteen stories yet, but I can't wait to see what else is in store.  What is it about the end of the world as we know it that is so intriguing to read?  Maybe it's the question each reader has to ask him or herself:  what would you do in these dire circumstances?

The Dark Zone

The latest in Testa's Galahad series is a slower moving study in the toll the trip is taking on the teens on this long journey and the relationships that have developed while on this journey. The teenagers seem to finally understand how daunting a task they have must accomplish. The readers get to see more of the underlying personalities of the main crew members. We see how the stress and responsibility starts to affect them.

The other aspect of The Dark Zone is finding out that they are not alone in the galaxy. Mysterious "things" attach themselves to the ship and the crew does not know whether they are alive or mechanical. While examining one of them inside the medical lab and trying to release it when it becomes extremely agitated, one of the main crew is killer. The Council and crew are devastated and it is their first experience with the death of one of their own.

The death causes the head of the Council to make what may be a very rash decision. Her decision causes the Council to have to do without yet another Council Member. We will have to wait until this October to find out what happens next. I am looking forward to the next installment. I have enjoyed the series thus far, I like the fact that the author gives these teens the intelligence and ability to think for themselves and to find a way to solve the problems they encounter during their journey.

Wither

I'm excited about this new series. When I first saw the book the premise grabbed me but the cover made me think, "Is this gonna be too fluffy for me?" Happily, no. I'm really enjoying this one. (My apologies to those who like fluffy.)

In the far future America of Wither, people die young. Very young. Males live to age 25, females to age 20. (Sexism! Why do guys get five more years?) Anyway. . . the world isn't doing so well: kids crowd the orphanages since their parents are dropping like flies, and the scientists of the older generation, the last to live a normal lifespan, fight for a cure that they can't find and some people don't want. Rhine's parents, who were geneticists, were killed because of their research, leaving Rhine and her twin brother, Rowan, to fend for themselves. Now teenagers, their greatest threat isn't scavenegers, the poisonous streets, or the dwindling job opportunities, but Gatherers--the men who kidnap young women and force them into sham marriages for the wealthy. (Here the premise gets a little fuzzy for me. I'm not entirely sure why all these women have to be kidnapped or why it's allowed, but I'm going to accept it anyway. Let's chalk it up to the general disintegration of society as we know it) The lucky kidnap victims are chosen for forced marriages, the unlucky are abandoned in brothels or murdered.

When the book opens, it's already too late for Rhine. We find her stuffed in a van with dozens of other terrified young women. Luckily, she is one of three chosen to become a bride; all of the other girls in the van are shot to death. Rhine and her "siser wives" find themselves prisoners in a luxurious mansion, married off to Linden, a young man who treats them well but holds them prisoner nonetheless. Rhine despises her captors and focuses her energy on pretending to be docile while actually searching for escape. She desperately wants to find her twin again. The mansion, though, is locked down tight, maze-like, its security nearly impossible to breach. As the weeks pass, Rhine develops a fondness for her sister wives and for the servant, Gabriel, and even, grudgingly, for Linden. But Linden's father, a cold and calculating scientist, turns Rhine's blood to ice. He's the biggest obstacle in her path to escape. But Rhine is determined to get out, find her brother, and live the last years of her life in freedom.

This is a gripping story, told in a fluid writing style that keeps the pages turning. I like the world the author created and the ideas she raises---can a prison ever become a comfort or is it always a prison no matter how beautiful it may be? How is loyalty formed, tested, and broken? Who's the villain in this story, really? What would you do if you only had four years to live--and you were expected to live them as a prisoner?

I haven't finished yet, but I can't imagine the book's going to disappoint me in the end. I wouldn't be surprised by a cliffhanger ending though. This is the first in The Chemical Garden trilogy.

Bones of Faerie

Post-apocalyptic fiction is all the rage these days. It’s always been a favorite genre for me. I wasn’t expecting Bones of Faerie to fit into this category but strangely it does. The world in this book is no longer the one we know now. Modern civilization was destroyed in the War with Faerie and though some human survivors remember the time Before, most of the world has reverted to a pre-industrial revolution way of life. It turns out that though most humans weren’t aware of it, magic was and is real, the world of Faerie was real too, and when,it’s implied, humans destroyed too much of the Earth, Faerie had enough and let us have it. Using magic, they turned plants and trees into sentient attackers. Loads of humans died; loads of faeries died. Now the remaining humans fear magic. Any humans born with a hint of magic about them are put to death. When Liza’s infant sister is born with telltale magic signs, her father leaves her on a hillside to perish. Too late Liza goes to try to save her sister and finds only the remains wild animals have left behind. Her mother abandons the family in grief. Shortly thereafter, Liza starts suffering magical visions and flees as well. She’s followed by Matthew, a friend and potential love interest, and together they discover a nearby community where the populace has embraced and honed their magical abilities, not feared and destroyed them. Following her visions, Liza realizes there is a chance her mother might have survived and she goes on a quest to find her mother.

I read this book because it’s been nominated for our Mock Printz discussion. I can’t say I think it’s going to win the Printz, but it was a worthwhile read and a fast one. I liked the unusual world the author created, especially the sentient plants. I found the mix of post-apocalypse and fantasy a little uneasy, not as fluid as Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth, as though I were always on the verge of not being able to suspend my disbelief, but in the end I accepted it. Some of the bit players weren’t as well developed as other. Allie, a young healer, seems like a pretty stock character. Matthew seems not to have any personality at all—sure he can shape-shift into a wolf, but even his magical ability seems not to match the magic of the rest of the fictional world; he seems to exist mostly to make Liza’s journey easier and secondarily because teen readers like their love interests. On the other hand, the faerie characters are intriguing and Liza is interesting enough to carry the action. The plot holds the reader’s attention and the stakes are high—failing in the quest means death for all three of our main characters. Success means a better future for the world at large.

Some lingering questions remain. For instance it isn’t clear why humans have magic. Did they interbreed with faeries at some point? Have they always repressed their magical abilities? Why would Liza’s mother, who once cavorted in a faerie land, go to the abusive man who became her husband? Well, perhaps these are queries for the reader to answer in her own mind or perhaps the author plans a sequel. I'd be willing to read that. According to the jacket, this is Janni Lee Simner's first novel for teens.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

In the Forest of Hands and Teeth Carrie Ryan creates a post-apocalyptic world you wouldn't want to live in. Imagine a world in which the Unconsecrated (we know them as zombies) outnumber the living and only a series of metal fences keep the reanimated dead from feasting on the flesh of the last surviving humans. Naturally the bite of an Unconsecrated infects the living, killing them and turning them. So those dead folk milling around bear the faces of people you once loved, and if you stumble too close to the links in the fence, you could shortly be joining the rank of the monsters . Good times!

Teenaged Mary loses first her father, then her mother to the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Then her brother turns her out of the house. No man will speak for Mary, so she winds up at the Cathedral, destined to join the religious Sisterhood. The reader immediately gets the heebie-jeebies about these Sisters, who clearly know more about the zombie situation than they're letting on. The Sisters insist that nothing exists beyond the forest, that once the fences run out there are only more Unconsecrated and certain doom. But Mary's mother told her tales of an ocean and Mary's obsession with finding a life beyond the limits of her village begins to overshadow everything, even her budding love for her childhood companion,Travis. This love is already complicated by the fact that Travis is bethrothed to her best friend and then complicated further still when Travis's brother finally asks for Mary to be his wife. Luckily at this point the zombies attack.

I loved this, though the first few chapters went a little slowly at first. Perhaps it was just my mood but I found some of the information repeated more times than neccesary. Luckily the story quickly picks up. It's gripping, exciting and eerie, just as a zombie tale is meant to be. I liked that Mary was torn between love for a man and her obsessive goal of finding life beyond the confined village. The constant backdrop of moaning zombies was a nice touch---the reader can practically hear the constant caterwauling and it's easy to imagine how unnerving that would be. I also got the willies every time the author described how close the main characters would get to the fences, close enough for the zombies to run their ragged fingers through the humans' hair.

I really only have two complaints about the book: 1) Exactly how much did the Sisters know? I never felt like this was adequately answered. Perhaps it was a subtlety I missed entirely; and 2) Couldn't we have gotten a better cover? This cover does not scream ZOMBIE NOVEL! Portrait of a contemplative teenage girl is fine for mainstream contemporary, but let's up the ante for post-apocalyptic zombie love triangle. Honestly! That said, this book is well worth reading. Settle in for a creepy ride, and hope and pray you never find yourself face to face with the Unconsecrated.

Gone -Michael Grant

What would you do if you were in class and the teacher was talking to your class and one second later, he disappeared? Some kind of magic trick? Not if all the other teachers in the school and everyone who was fifteen just disappeared. At first it seems like a dream come true but then it becomes creepy when no one can explain where they have gone. It is chaos and no one knows what to do except wander around and break into the vending machines.

When the shock kind of wears off and the surviving teens realize they have to do something, they turn to Sam Temple for leadership. He reluctantly gets most of the kids in a loosely organized effort to have the older kids take care of the younger children. No one, not even Sam, has any kind of plan and naturally there are kids who do not want to be bossed around by Sam or anyone else. As if things could not get worse, students from a private school drive into Perdido Beach and take over the town.

Complicating all of this is the fact that some of the kids have developed powers that are scary and potentially very dangerous. Add to this the element of entitlement because of these powers and you have a very volatile situation. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the wild animals also seem to have mutated and they are pretty scary themselves. Things like flying rattlesnakes and talking coyotes who have also grown much bigger and more physically powerful.

It is the good guys against the bad guys with the lines sometimes blurring the longer the kids are without adults to help them. What is interesting is that with one exception, even the bad guys can be seen with some sympathy. If you were in this kind of situation, I wonder how we would behave and what kind of decisions would we make. I find these kind of novels extremely interesting because, they bring out some of the best and the worst in the human species. Hopefully, I would be have the courage to back the kids who are trying to help as many survive as possible.

The book ends with Caine, the leader of the bad guys, limping off into the desert with the leader of the talking coyotes in search of "the darkness". So it seems that there is a sequel in the works. I am looking forward to it. I am eager to see how Sam and the rest of his cohorts fare. How and if they will make it in this small brave, new world.