Tag Archives: dayna lorentz
No Safety in Numbers
No Safety In Numbers, Book 1
Juvenile Fiction
Puffin
2013-04-04
288
Teens Shay, Marco, Lexi, and Ryan, quarantined in a shopping mall after a biological bomb goes off in an air duct, learn that in an emergency people change, and not always for the better, as many become sick and supplies run low.
Review:
I began “No Safety in Numbers” with the highest of hopes. I mean, bioterrorism and a crowded mall? What could go wrong with that, right? By about chapter five my entire reason for finishing the book was so I could write a review of it.
That’s right. I loathed a book so bad that I became obsessed with getting to the end just to be able to share my thoughts on how horrible it is. Now my moment has come. Unfortunately, the English language has not yet evolved enough to have words strong enough to describe the complete pile of dung this collection of words creates.
There was one character, the senator’s daughter, who seemed like she was going to be well-developed with an interesting storyline in the first chapter. Alas, that worked out like a child learning about Santa Claus on the first day of preschool, only to go home and find out being Jewish means no Santa. Only worse. Coal in a stocking is a better present than the lack of character development.
The entire plot revolved around being stuck in a mall during a mysterious lockdown, and somehow the author managed to make the book boring without at all conveying any sense of how bored everyone would be, desperate, panicked, or anything else. The teenagers seemed to want to escape while also having fun like they were Kevin McCalister and their parents went on vacation without them. Sliding down a bowling lane naked. Really?
And then there are the complete stereotypes. We have the jock, the artist, the nerd, the mysterious Indian, the misunderstood kid who is bullied, and more. There is nothing to create anything deeper than the tropes that come to mind when you think of these tried and true stereotypes. In fact, the author seemed to just assume everyone already knew those tropes so it wasn’t even really necessary to establish even the most basic aspects of their personalities.
Then we have the writing. It is written on the level meant for a solid d-level third grader, and yet it discusses some very adult behavior in not-too-subtle ways. I have not the faintest idea of what age group this is aimed for, but I hope that should anyone ever find out they do not actually put it into that child’s hands. No child should be exposed to the horribly offensive bad writing, even if they can handle the gratuitous sexual references.
In short: If I die and go to Hell, Satan will be waiting for me with the next two books in the series.
Content Warning:
Strong Language, Violence, Sexual Situations, Horrific Writing
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