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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | YA Fic Lorentz, D. 2012 | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Newberg Public Library | TEEN LORENTZ | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stayton Public Library | TEEN LORENTZ | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
When a strange device is discovered in the air ducts of a busy suburban mall, the entire complex is suddenly locked down. No one can leave. No one knows what is going on.
At first, there's the novelty og being stuck in a mega mall with free food and a gift certificate. But with each passing day, it becomes harder to ignore the dwindling supplies, inadequate information, and mounting panic.
Then people start getting sick.
Told from the point of view of two guys and two girls, this is a harrowing look at what can happen under the most desperate of circumstances, when regular people are faced with impossible choices. Some rise to the occasion. Some don't.
And for some-its too late.
Author Notes
Authors Bio, not available
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-This addition to the dystopian-literature craze takes place over the course of seven days in a megamall in New York, and is told in alternating chapters from the perspective of four teens with varying backgrounds. Marco is a Hispanic boy who works in a restaurant and is bullied by the local jocks. Lexi is an African American teen who has a dysfunctional relationship with her busy and absent senator mom, aka "Mom-strosity." Ryan is a jock who is trying to live up to the expectations of his superstar older brother. And Shay is new to town and at the mall with her sister and immigrant grandmother from India who is suffering from diabetes. While all four are at the mall, a bioterrorism bomb explodes. The large space is locked down, trapping everyone inside. It's not long before people start getting sick, security guards commence hunting down anyone with a cough, and everyone begins fighting for survival. As this book focuses on the relationships and personal dramas of the four narrators, the suspense and tension of an emergency situation is never really felt. Ryan and Marco are both attracted to Shay and dealing with their own tribulations, while Lexi makes some friends and connects with her mom. The characters, though a little cliched, are likable. This book will find an audience with teens drawn to disaster novels.-Jake Pettit, Thompson Valley High School, Loveland, CO (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Lorentz's YA debut cogently explores the impact of an emergency situation on multiple characters in a finite space. An ordinary day at the mall turns deadly after the discovery of a biological bomb in the air ducts prompts an immediate lockdown, trapping thousands of shoppers inside. With information scarce and security on alert, everyone approaches the situation differently. Restaurant worker Marco tries to do his job, senator's daughter Lexi attempts to figure out the truth, quirky Shay takes care of her ailing grandmother, and athletic Ryan joins others in an effort to escape. As their paths cross and stories overlap, these four teens find friends and romance, even as society breaks down around them and a fatal disease claims numerous victims. This tense trilogy opener takes its time establishing the memorably diverse and sympathetic characters, while foreshadowing and vivid staging (stores in the mall take on special significance under the circumstances) build a sense of claustrophobia and desperation. Very little is resolved before the inevitable cliffhanger, but readers will eagerly await the next installment. Ages 12-up. Agent: Faye Bender, Faye Bender Literary Agency. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
An ordinary weekend trip to the mall turns into a nightmare when a bio-bomb is found in one of the air ducts. Among the quarantined shoppers are four teens whose paths intersect as they fight to survive, dealing with cliques and crushes as well as disease and unrest. The gripping story's cliffhanger ending sets the stage for a sequel. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A nightmare scenario plays out in a shopping mall, and a group of very different teens must strategize to survive in this engrossing, if uneven thriller. Reserved and sarcastic Marco is the first to suspect a problem when he arrives at the mall for work and finds a strange device near a ventilation shaft. Soon, Lexi, the computer-whiz daughter of a preoccupied senator, self-described drama nerd Shay and insecure jock Ryan find themselves trapped along with thousands of others when authorities lock the shopping center down. The third-person narration shifts focus among these four teens as the days go by. A sense of unease begins to grow, and its progressive build allows time for nuanced exploration of the main characters, including the set-up of a love triangle among three of them and the violent antics of Ryan's self-entitled teammates. However, the docility of the masses extends too long to be entirely believable; even after a hazmat-suitclad figure carries out Shay's collapsed Nani, they fail to panic. "Amazing, the herd's ability to forget the disturbance of their peace," thinks Marco, even as he understands that there is a lot the powers-that-be are not telling: "Grandma was in some serious shit--exactly what kind of shit was the mystery in need of solving." A whopping and disturbing cliffhanger serves as the conclusion. Readers will anxiously await the sequel. (Thriller. 14-18)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Ever since George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, shopping malls have entered pop culture as an ideal location to stage societal microcosms. This time, a bomb has released a biotoxin through the air ducts of the Shops at Stonecliff. Several thousand are sealed off, and interaction with the outside is limited to secretive men in hazmat suits. It's bad enough sleeping on dirty floors and then people start dying. Lorentz focuses on four teens: Marco, a busboy at Grill 'n' Shake whose inside knowledge forges an uneasy alliance with violent jocks; Ryan, a freshman jock with love, not hate, on his mind; Shay, a girl desperate to care for her ailing grandmother; and Lexi, whose senator mother has assumed a leadership role. As bad news mounts, riots begin, well staged by Lorentz, even as other events hold less than the expected impact. Still, it's grim fun to watch the Pancake Palace become the morgue, the Apple Store become the base of the elite, and so on. No real ending here, so brace for the sequel.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
EVEN in an economic downturn, who isn't still wooed by the material Mecca of a superstore, whether it's to goggle at the luxury goods or merely to sample the high-fat comfort fare of the food court? Holly Golightly's assertion that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's resonates because it seems instinctively true. Shimmering ladders of gold chains, polished rows of perfect produce or neat rainbow stacks of cotton T-shirts can provide a sense of well-ordered security often lacking in the outside world. Two chilling postapocalyptic novels, "Monument 14" and "No Safety in Numbers," both debuts, play with this collective sense of safety in retail therapy, suggesting that something darker may lie beneath the pretty surfaces. In "Monument 14," by Emmy Laybourne, a comedian and actress, the consumer refuge is a fictitious Greenway store in Monument, Colo. Set in 2024, the story unfolds in a world where all students have tablet computers that run on an über-reliable national network; its collapse is the first sign something is awry since, as we learn, "the Network had never, ever gone down." After surviving a horrific morning school bus crash caused by a freak hailstorm, Dean Glieder, a high school junior who is the book's narrator, and 13 other surviving children find themselves in a state of profound shock, forced to organize a makeshift community within Greenway's Walmart-like walls. Once inside, they learn via television that a Canary Island volcano set off a tsunami that has taken out the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The eruption also initiated intense storms that have pummeled the rest of the country. And, in short order, the devastation is followed by an 8.2 earthquake, which compromises the seals of Monument's chemical-weapon storage facility. This causes the release of deadly poisons that, depending on blood type, leave victims paranoid, violent, sterile or dead. Whoa. While shopping therapy cannot possibly assuage the grim aftershocks of the accumulated disaster, the older teenagers among the group quickly realize their incredible luck in landing in Greenway - especially after they realize they have enough resources to live on for almost two years as long as they ration and allow no one else inside. Yet when they discover that the escaped contaminants can be passed not only through air but also through running water, their refuge threatens to become their final resting place. Laybourne's strong characterizations of the resourceful, optimistic children who make up this improvised family intensify the horror of the situation and make the almost cartobnish series of catastrophes frighteningly real. After last year's deadly events in Japan, the novel's rapidly amassing disasters seem disturbingly plausible. Unlike the sanctuary of the Greenway in "Monument 14," the mall at the center of Dayna Lorentz's "No Safety in Numbers" is the target of a biological terrorist When a bomb releasing a deadly flu virus is discovered inside the ventilation system of the Shops at Stonecliff, the Westchester megamall is quickly locked down to keep the potentially infected shoppers from contaminating the greater New York area. The ensuing life-or-death crisis unfolds for four teenagers from different levels of the high school hierarchy: working-class Marco; Lexi the computer whiz; the football rookie Ryan; and Shay, an actress. While Lorentz's attempt to diversify the young adult character pool is laudable (Marco's grandparents are Costa Rican, Lexi is African-American, Shay says her classmates see her as "the Indian chick"), her profiles lean more toward tell than show, and the third-person narration lacks the nuance and first-person intensity of "Monument 14." Nevertheless, her detailed depiction of the escalating chaos over the course of seven long days is deeply unsettling. When the dire extent of the situation is finally revealed, it leads to group panic, mob violence and worse. As the teenagers' increasingly desperate attempts to escape the marbled halls of plenty make clear, once personal choice is taken away, the notion that the mall is anything but a prison is shown to be little more than a carefully constructed fantasy. What we're really buying when we scoop up that hot toy, trendy shoe or carton of organic milk, both authors seem to suggest, is not the purchase itself, but what that coveted object represents: a sense of identity, a feeling of community, the illusion of safety. Surrounded by coffee-table art books, fancy watches and slick cellphones, it's easy to feel that the monsters will be kept at bay. As the tightly bonded teenagers quickly learn in these two riveting disaster novels, it is not our perfectly maintained belongings that will save us, but our messy, rewarding relationships. Deadly poisons leave victims paranoid, violent, sterile or dead. Whoa. Jennifer Hubert Swan is the middle-school librarian at the Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School She blogs at Reading Rants.