Review: Monument 14

Title:  Monument 14
Series:  Monument 14 #1
Author:  Emmy Laybourne (Website | Twitter)
Age Group:  Young Adult
Publisher:  Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date:  June 5, 2012
Source:  Bought

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.

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My Review:  While I liked the basic premise of this book, I had some major problems with other aspects.  This was definitely one of those I-want-to-throw-you-against-the-wall-but-I-need-to-know-what-happens kind of reads.  If not for how invested I was in wanting to know how everything resolved, I would have put this book down after the first 50 pages. 

One of the biggest problems I had with this book was the characters.  I didn't like a single one of them.  Wait - that's a lie.  I liked the five year old twins.  But that was it.  I hated that I couldn't like the main character but, honestly, he felt a little creepy to me, especially after something that happened in the middle of the book involving a girl.  Speaking of girls, this book was also suffering from a chronic case of insta-love.  Our main character Dean hadn't ever once even talked to the love interest, Astrid, before this book started and within the first 5 pages he called he the love of his life.  Seriously.  Astrid was yelling at Dean at one point and he was like "she was furious and she looked gorgeous".

   
Also, I had a hard time picturing the setting in the beginning of this book.  It seemed like this was taking place in present time but then Dean would say something that would make it seem like it was in the future.  Eventually (on page 45), we learn that this story is actually taking place in the year 2024.  That made it a little confusing.  

Besides those problems, I really enjoyed this book.  Just the premise and the apocalyptic feel was enough to keep me hooked.  I needed to know what was going to happen to these kids.  There was so much they didn't know about what was going on out in the world and it made everything very tense and high-stress.  There were seriously creepy moments that just sent chills down my spine and I thought it was really interesting how different each character reacted to these events.  

I don't know if I'll be continuing this series.  I'm interested enough in the outcome to want to pick up the second book but I feel like the characters are just going to wear on my patience the more I'm with them.  The second book might be one of those I'm-bored-and-there's-nothing-else-to-read reads that I pick up out of the blue.  We'll see.  

“Sometimes, when you'd least expect it, the grief would chop your legs out from under you.” 

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