No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz
Published by Dial Books May 2012
Reviewed from ARC provided by the Publisher
SummaryA biological bomb has just been discovered in the air ducts of a busy suburban mall. At first nobody knows if it's even life threatening, but then the entire complex is quarantined, people start getting sick, supplies start running low, and there's no way out. Among the hundreds of trapped shoppers are four teens.My Thoughts:
These four different narrators, each with their own stories, must cope in unique, surprising styles, changing in ways they wouldn't have predicted, trying to find solace, safety, and escape at a time when the adults are behaving badly.
This is a gripping look at people and how they can--and must--change under the most dire of circumstances.
And not always for the better
Aside from the fact that this title was highly recommended to me, I definitely would have been pulled in by the book comparison “ Life As We Knew It, meets Lord of the Flies in a Mall”. The story opens and we meet Marco, who is on the run from two determined bullyish jocks from his school. Attempting to hide in a the HVAC closet he stumbles upon something even scarier than the bullies who pursue him.
The bomb has released something in the air and soon the mall is over run in chaos as the people inside the mall become quarantined and unable to leave. We follow 4 teens (the narrators) as they attempt to make sense of their surrounding, their situation and each other. I enjoyed reading the perspectives of each of the 4 teens especially as they realized their worries from earlier in the day ie. what shoes to buy, parent issues, and the latest computer game became unimportant in the face of trying to survive. Themes of sacrifice, helping others or yourself, and the importance of family are laced through out. No Safety in Numbers reads like a stand alone novel. It wasn’t until the last two chapters that I began to accept that the book would not come to conclusion in the next 100 pages. Twists and turns and the voices of the narrators propel the book forward to the inevitable cliff hanger ending. Enjoyable read. (love the cover too) I can also see this becoming a popular recommendation for reluctant teen readers.
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I really love books like this that show what people must resort to doing in the most dire of circumstances. I'm a little disappointed to hear that this is part of a series, but it definitely still sounds interesting.
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