Play Book Tag discussion

When 15-year old Alex’s parents leave him alone for the weekend for the first time, little do they know that (literally) disaster will soon follow. Alex is in the house when something hits it and suddenly there is a fire. Not only that, part of the house heaves and collapses and he is underneath a desk. He manages to pull himself free and get out, but with no phones working (cell or landline), he runs the few blocks to the fire department. The power is also out. Luckily, Alex’s neighbours are willing to take him in, but no one really knows what’s going on. The “thunder” is ridiculously loud and continuous throughout the night. They wake up to utter darkness, inside and out (it’s daytime). Things happen (that I won’t go into), but Alex later finds himself travelling toward Illinois (he is in Iowa) via skis to find his parents and younger sister. Hopefully they made it to his uncle’s place.

This was really good. It drew me in right away. I thought the author did a really good job of the descriptions – of the noise, of the dark... It’s scary the kinds of things people will do following a disaster like this (the characters – and the reader – did find out the next day what had happened, although I’ve left that out of my summary). Some of the people Alex comes across are helpful, but many are not. I believe this is a trilogy, so it didn’t fully finish. There was a short author’s note at the end, as well, to talk about this kind of potential disaster.