Review: Monument 14

Title: Monument 14
Author: Emmy Laybourne
Release Date: June 5, 2012
Source: library

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

Nancy’s Review:

When I first read what this book was about I knew I had to read it. It was a little bit different from what I have been reading lately, so it was definitely a nice change of pace. I found Monument 14 very enjoyable! I was surprised at just how fast I kept turning the pages, I wanted more. The story was very original, something unlike anything else I’ve read before. I was very happy to see that it wasn’t just teenagers stuck in a superstore, there were young kids there, too. That mixed it up very nicely, and it made the book seem less “teenager-ish”. I loved reading about how they all interacted with one another after been stuck inside that store under such horrible circumstances.

The characters were all very enjoyable and real. While I did grow to slightly dislike some of them, it wasn’t because of how they were written, but because they seemed so real like people that I would know. I loved that they all reacted very much how I would expect kids in real life to react if something like what happened to them occurred now. I was impressed with just how much depth was given to each character and how much the reader learns about them. At the end, I felt like I really knew them and that was a big plus for me.

The pace of the book was a bit slow for me, and I was a bit anxious to get to the good stuff. However, because the book wasn’t very long (less than 300 pages) it didn’t bother me much. One thing that I didn’t like was the ending! There should have been a bit more suspense at the end, instead it ended right in the middle of nothing, which I found rather boring. I’m sure there will be a sequel, and I definitely want to read it. I highly recommend it to everyone, it’s one of those books that all types of people will enjoy!