Review: The Detour by S.A. Bodeen

First, thanks to Feiwel and Friends as well as Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  I've been a fan of this author since I read The Compound.  The books are always pretty quick reads, as well as very suspenseful.  This one was a really great teen version of the book Misery by Stephen King, although the kidnappers weren't really "fans" of the teen author. 

The main character is a best-selling teen author named Livvy Flynn.  She's on her way to a writing conference where she has been asked to come and speak.  Now at first Livvy is kind of hard to like. She's pretty full of herself it seems, the way she thinks of the older women who come and ask her advice at the conferences, well, let's just say it's not very nice.  Or maybe just as I am one of the women in the age group she talks about, and I'm starting to write, maybe I just felt it kind of personally.  She doesn't have a lot of friends, but there is a boy that she has been Skyping with, a boy who is a struggling wannabe writer himself.  And she is hoping to meet him in person when she goes to this conference.  On the road though she gets distracted and that's all it takes, suddenly her car crashes.  She lands upside down in the car. There is a girl she saw on the road that has come over and she asks the girl for help.  The girl had been doing something kind of weird when Livvy saw her, but she still is glad to see someone come to help her.  Or so she thinks, until the girl hits her in the head and knocks her out. 

When Livvy next wakes up she is in a room, in a basement, and the door is locked.  Not that she could get out, her legs are really hurt bad, and she probably has a concussion between the accident and being hit in the head.  Soon the girl from the road, and what is her mother show up.  The mother doesn't seem very friendly, and is pretty grouchy about what she sees as Livvy being ungrateful that she's been saved.  The mother says there is something that Livvy needs to apologize for.  But Livvy doesn't recognize this woman, can't even think of anything she might have done.  The woman at times is very nice, almost mothering, but can turn in a second to a woman who shows Livvy scorn for being spoiled and selfish.  The daughter, well there is something wrong with that girl.  She seems intent to kill or hurt Livvy. Fortunately for the most part, the mother tries to keep her daughter away from Livvy. 

Livvy is stuck there, not knowing how she will get rescued, or who might even know she is missing.  There are some other people that show up at the house.  One a police officer, who almost seems to either be in on the whole thing, or willing to look away, due to something the mom has over him. Then there is a very perverted seeming teen boy, about Livvy's age.  And she just hopes that he isn't able to find his way into her prison in the basement, and do the things he says he will to her.

Really this is so well done.  I kind of guessed the reason for the mom being angry with Livvy.  But really the way it all unfolded was so good.  Like I said, a definite comparison to Misery in how scary the final moments could be.  Once again this author has done a great job with her story.  I can't wait to have my students read it, and then recommend other books, like the King one, to follow up.

The Fallout (The Compound #2) by S.A. Bodeen

First, thanks to Edelweiss and Feiwel & Friends publishing for allowing me to read an e-galley of this over the summer.  When I saw this was coming out I was very excited!  I read the first book, The Compound, back when it was nominated for one of our state library awards.  And I really liked it.
Without being too spoilery, I do have to say that this book starts about 6 or 7 years after the other one, after the family has made it out of the compound.  All except for their father, who is believed to have died in the fire.  So now Eli gets to be reunited with his twin Eddy and his grandmother.  But it's not as perfect as they'd like it to be.  Because now there are extra siblings.  Lucas, Quinn, and Cara. Siblings that would have been supplements to the family's nutrition in the Compound if their father's experiment had worked the way they'd wanted.   And they are trying to stay private so that the press can't harass them for what they've been through.  And this means they are stuck in their house.  They begin to have outings that are as simple as going to Costco, just to get out of the house.  At Costco, Eli sees someone and begins to believe they might be followed.  He even gets online and sees a hash tag on Twitter of people who think they've seen the family of the billionaire.  And one person has seen them at Costco.  Eli and his brother want to get involved in the company.  And Eli finds a charity he wants to learn more about.  When he goes to the research facility he meets a girl.  But he can't be honest about who he is because of the crazies.  On one of their next outings, Lucas disappears and is found by a teen boy named Tony.  Eddy soon becomes friends with Tony, inviting him to a baseball game outing, and as Eli soon learns, sneaking out of the house with him.  Lexie has decided she wants to  find out who her biological parents are.  And Eli is trying to find out why these people are following him and his family.  One of the people he catches following him leaves a business card, and it turns out this guy is in the end of the world bunker business.  And what he wants is the family to check out the bunkers and see if they would be good.  Many things are happening, and the ending, well, it's suspenseful and full of surprises!  Eli finally lets his brother Eddy in on just how horrible things were in the compound to help him understand why their father isn't as great as he remembered.  And this helps the twins get closer to each other and Lexie to be able to work together and save their family from yet another scientific experiment, this one on helping with aging, which has to do with the charity for the disease Eli was so interested in, Progeria.
Another great story.  I think the readers that liked the first one will love this one too!
I kind of think this might have left off for another book in the series!  And I will be waiting hopefully for it.

2013 Truman Possibility 7: Lost in the River of Grass by Ginny Rorby

Okay, I started out this book really getting irritated with the main character, Sarah.  She wasn't happy because she'd moved to a new school with a scholarship from swimming, and no one seemed to like her because she wasn't wealthy like the rest of them.  She got stuck going on a weekend field trip to the Everglades with her science teacher, Mr. Vickers, who was a nice guy who was taking an interest in her and trying to get her involved in order to hopefully make friends.  But it doesn't seem to be happening.  She tries once or twice, but the girls, the AABC's as Sarah calls them, won't give her a chance.  On the first day at the camp, she meets a cute boy named Andy.  He works at the camp, and offers to take Sarah on a ride in the airboat the next day with a picnic.  She's not looking forward to hanging out with the snobby kids from her school, so she agrees. Which means she has to lie to Mr. Vickers the next morning so she can stay back when the rest of the group goes on the tour.
The next morning after the group has left, instead of dressing to be prepared for a day in the swamp, she dresses cute to impress Andy.  This turns out to be a bad idea, because they stop for the picnic, and when they're done eating, they go back and the boat is gone.  Not stolen, just sunk because Andy forgot to plug something back up after he cleaned the boat out.  Now they must trek through the Glades to try to find help.
My irritation with Sarah began when she was so picky about birds or other creatures being eaten in nature.  Okay, it's nature, that's what happens.  Then, when she and Andy are out at the place for the picnic, she is being totally prissy.  Very annoying.  I know she's a city girl, but she's in the swamp, with a "local", what does she expect?  So that whole thing was very annoying the whole time.  As they were hiking she was totally freaked out about everything.  And hey, I can understand, the snakes, and alligators, and all the plants that are sharp enough to cut her, that does suck.  But, man, sometimes I just wanted her to shut up.  And she ended up saving a little duck, that she named Teapot.  Teapot was a fun part of the story, although again she was a bit of a whiner about that whole bit too.  I guess making her so whiny at the start really helps make her transformation at the end after their journey and all the stresses they go through more profound.
I can see this being a favorite for people who like survival stories.  I think all the scary moments sounded pretty realistic without having to like fight off an alligator or any such thing. I have never read Hatchet, but would assume this story is a survival story in the same manner.  Also reminds me of The Raft by S.A. Bodeen as a bit of a survival story.
So in conclusion, not my favorite of all the books, but it did have some good points, and I could see what kind of readers it would attract.

The Raft by S.A. Bodeen

I'd like to thank Netgalley and Macmillan Childrens Publishing Corporation for letting me read an egalley of this. 
First I have to say that I have enjoyed two of the books by this author, The Compound and The Gardener.  This book was also good, but a bit different.  Our main character is Robie.  Her parents are scientists on a remote island in the Pacific.  She gets really bored there and so often goes to stay with her aunt in Honolulu.  And that is where we join the story.  Living with her aunt she does some kind of rebellious things.  This time she's getting her nose pierced.  We find out that Robie's way of dealing with things she is scared of is by finding out what would be worse.  Soon though Robie's aunt has to go out of town unexpectedly and while she really is supposed to go back to her parents, she convinces her aunt to let her stay as long as a friend of her aunt's checks in on her every day.  And Robie is stoked when the friend ends up not being able to.  But then, she gets lonely and bored by herself.  And when she is attacked on the street, she runs home, and decides to go ahead and fly back to the island on the next supply flight out.  When she gets to the airport the next night, she's not been able to get ahold of anyone to let them know she is coming.  But she assumes they've told the island that she's coming with them.  As they're flying, with one different pilot than normal, they must go a different way because of a storm, the reason communication has been lost with the island in the first place.  And, Robie and her baggage were never weighed, so it is possible that the extra weight causes the engines to not be able to handle all the stress with the storm, and it goes down.  Robie and one of the pilots, Max, are able to get in the raft.  The other pilot doesn't make it, goes down with the plane.  Now they're stranded in a raft, which seems to have a leak.  Robie must figure out how to survive with no water or food.  She soon also realizes she could probably figure out which way to land and maybe an inhabited island.  She does finally reach land.  But landing there isn't necessarily any better.  Throughout the experience, she spends a lot of time alone, as Max seems to be sleeping all the time.  She thinks she will find food, but then that brings a shark.  On the island she realizes just how alone she is, and must again fight for her survival.
An interesting story.  I love how the author uses a Hunger Games reference, she hopes for a silver parachute to come in and bring her exactly what she needs at that moment.  And I love that the first food she finds, are in Max's ditty bag, and it is Skittles, my favorite candy.  This was a short, quick read, and a good one.

The Gardener by S.A. Bodeen

This is the 2nd book I've read by this author, and I see a bit of a trend. But it's a good one! One that I think will bring about more books to read in the future.

Anyway, our main character is Mason, when he was a young boy, he was mauled by a neighbor's dog, and has grown up with a hideously scarred face. He lives in a town with a big science lab called TroDyn. He wants to go work there for the summer, because he is very interested in science, but his mother won't let him. One night when he stops by the nursing home his mother works at, he finds a girl, several young catatonic people actually, that are at what he assumed was a nursing home for older people. While he's waiting on his friend, he slips a DVD, the only thing he has of his father into the DVD player. It is a recording of his father reading a children's book. During certain lines, this girl wakes up. Then the next few lines, she goes back to being catatonic. Mason figures out the parts of the poem wake her up, and so he wakes her up. When he does, she freaks out a bit, not sure where she is, and starts talking about him getting her away before the Gardener comes.

So, Mason takes her away and tries to find out what is going on. It's obvious she was part of some experiment at the labs.

A big point of this story is how someday we are going to run out of food. And the scientists are looking for ways to make humans more like plants, autotrophs in other words, that can make their own food from the sun.

Mason gets wrapped up in the girl's mystery, and even finds some things out about himself.

This was a very engrossing read. I will definitely be recommending it at the bookstore as well as to my students. The trend I see was that in The Compound, the dad was trying to find a way to keep his family alive underground, with some kind of sick experiments. Again, scientists trying to find a way to save the human race with some kind of sick experiments.