Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

Publisher- Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date- June 5, 2012
Pages- 294

Your mother hollers that you’re going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don’t stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don’t thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not—you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner.Only, if it’s the last time you’ll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you’d stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran.Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong. 

In Emmy Laybourne’s action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world—as they know it—apart.

The reason I bought this book was because it was pretty much stalking me on Amazon. Everywhere I clicked this was recommended to me. So I just thought, "What the heck? I sounds interesting so I'll give it  try." And I'm certainly glad I did. 

The plot picked up very fast, within the first 2 or 3 pages, and it never really let up. There were twists and turns that kept it moving at a fairly fast pace throughout. 

For me the best part of this book was the characters. They felt very real to me. I could think of someone in my life that was similar to each of the characters. I think they all acted how any normal person would in a situation like this. Our main character was Dean. He was sort of playing the "Mr. Mom" in the store. He cooked and cleaned and helped with the kids a lot and he didn't enjoy that too much. But as things got tougher he really stepped up, as did everyone else, and I was very impressed with the kind of society that they formed.

The negatives were very small and didn't bother me too much. It seemed that as the story progressed the main character felt the need to remind us rather bluntly of the major events that had happened. There were times when he actually stated, "Because remember here was a big hail storm..." and obviously I remember because the hail storm was the event that started the book. Other than that I don't have anything negative to say.

My Rating: