Review: Strangelets by Michelle Gagnon

Strangelets by Michelle Gagnon

Release Date: April 9th 2013
Publisher:Soho Teen
Format: Hardcover/egalley
Pages: 288
Source: Library/NetGalley
Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon | The Book Depository
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17-year-old Sophie lies on her deathbed in California, awaiting the inevitable loss of her battle with cancer…

17-year-old Declan stares down two armed thugs in a back alley in Galway, Ireland…

17-year-old Anat attempts to traverse a booby-trapped tunnel between Israel and Egypt…

All three strangers should have died at the exact same moment, thousands of miles apart. Instead, they awaken together in an abandoned hospital—only to discover that they’re not alone. Three other teens from different places on the globe are trapped with them. Somebody or something seems to be pulling the strings. With their individual clocks ticking, they must band together if they’re to have any hope of surviving.

Soon they discover that they've been trapped in a future that isn't of their making: a deadly, desolate world at once entirely familiar and utterly strange. Each teen harbors a secret, but only one holds the key that could get them home. As the truth comes to light Sophie, Declan, Anat, and the rest must decide what to do with a second chance at life—if they can survive to claim it.

 

Strangelets is an extremely unusual book and will be very hard to review without spoiling so this will probably be short. This book deals with post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, time-travel and multi-dimensions. There are also some monsters involved but those did nothing for me.

Six teenagers that are on their deathbeds or extremely near death wake up in a hospital that seems to be sealed in. All the teens come from different places around the world. Even though we interact with six characters, we only get the points of view from three and it is told in third person. The points of view switched throughout the chapters which sometimes confused me. I had trouble figuring out who we were following a couple different times in the book.

Sophie, Declan, and Anat are the three characters we alternate through. Sophie is from California and is spending her final day’s in a hospice because she dying of cancer. Declan is from Ireland and has just found himself trapped in an alleyway with a gun pointed at him by the men he has stolen from. Finally, Anat is a solider in Egypt trying to run away to her fiancé across the border.

There is some insta-love between a two of the characters because this book happened over a couple days’ time. I really don’t like insta-love (who does..) The mystery in this book was ok for a while but even with that I felt like it was going slow during the first 100 pages or so. I had a hard time actually connecting with any of the characters. I didn’t feel like I was being pulled into the story and the ending happened way to easy. After all the characters went through, the ending was only a couple pages long. Then everything was all happy and upbeat. We were left with questions on what happened. When the book started to get somewhat interesting it was over. There was potential with this book but it fell short for me.

 

My Rating:

 

*This book was provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.