Review: BAD CALL
I started this book with a sense of foreboding. Beginning with the first page (what a reader's hook!), my intuition just "knew" something was going to go very badly wrong. Some one or more of the characters would suffer, and so would I, vicariously. Some of them I distrusted from the beginning; plus I knew that the deception from the very beginning would prove disastrous, bringing on trouble, and more lies, and quite possibly betrayal. As the story continues, the suspense ratchets higher and the tension tautens. As everything seems to conspire against this disparate conglomeration, tricking and blocking their attempts at progress, true character rises to the forefront, both strong integrity and vicious cruelty. When Nature itself leaps in to confuse and destroy, and more than one of this mismatched group of four adolescents makes their own "bad call" (and making wrong or misguided decisions is a consistent theme in this novel), nothing can result but tragedy. The result for the reader: constant breathtaking suspense.
I started this book with a sense of foreboding. Beginning with the first page (what a reader's hook!), my intuition just "knew" something was going to go very badly wrong. Some one or more of the characters would suffer, and so would I, vicariously. Some of them I distrusted from the beginning; plus I knew that the deception from the very beginning would prove disastrous, bringing on trouble, and more lies, and quite possibly betrayal. As the story continues, the suspense ratchets higher and the tension tautens. As everything seems to conspire against this disparate conglomeration, tricking and blocking their attempts at progress, true character rises to the forefront, both strong integrity and vicious cruelty. When Nature itself leaps in to confuse and destroy, and more than one of this mismatched group of four adolescents makes their own "bad call" (and making wrong or misguided decisions is a consistent theme in this novel), nothing can result but tragedy. The result for the reader: constant breathtaking suspense.