Dead Zone

Note: May contain spoilers if you have not read Blackout, the first novel.

Ok, so here is the sequel to and resolution of Blackout. It took me a little time to sit down and read this one since I got distracted by other books, but once more I was pushed to rush through this book in a little over 24 hours by the incredibly fast paced story line. To give you an idea of how short of time frame this story takes place over, near the end of this book Aubrey, our favorite invisible girl, is thinking about the dance that started the story. It took place two and a half months before. So from start to finish these two books capture about 11 weeks in these kids' lives. And a whole lot of hell happens in those weeks!

So, in this book we get to meet the Russians. In particular we have two Russian lambdas who are leading the charge onto American soil to supposedly shift the populace out of areas they want to inhabit. The Russians claim that they will allow the Americans to go peacefully, however, a whole lot of people end up dying in the process.

Once more, Aubrey, Jack, and their team are thrown onto the front lines to find the two lambdas helping the Russian war effort. And this time, they are considered full fledged soldiers, expected to follow orders and take lives when necessary. Again we see Aubrey's issues with authority, Jack's determination to save her, and the chaos that comes when you rely on teenagers to take on too much weight.

As I said before, I believe Wells does a great job of capturing the real possibilities of using teenagers in such a situation. Sure,t hey are the only ones that can do what they do, but the Army does not like it, the teens don't like it, and things fall apart frequently enough to make everyone doubt what they are doing. I love Wells for pointing out the faults in his own story.

And I loved the ending to this story! It was another action packed, fast paced, chaos filled, wonderfully written book! I look forward to reading more of Wells' works if they are as imaginative and well written as this one! So look for more of his titles among my future posts.