Thursday, May 26, 2016

Series Worth Reading: Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

I made a choice not too long ago to only read series when they were completed, and I had all the books in my possession.  What a good choice.  Instead of reading one book and then forgetting it and trying to get back into the series a year later, I can read them all within weeks of each other.  I usually intersperse standalones between books but not so many that I lose track of the series.  This has turned series reading into a welcome event instead of an exercise in frustration.  Happily, there are oodles and tons of complete YA series that are out there ripe for the reading (and reviewing...with only light spoilers!).

Monument 14 is one such series.  I'm an easy target for a good post-apocalyptic/dystopian series, and this one was great.

Book one wastes no time getting right into the nitty gritty of the apocalypse.  Dean and his brother Alex are running to catch their school buses little knowing that their lives as they knew them are about to be over.  Between home and school the buses are caught in a treacherous hail storm.  Dean's bus wrecks, but, quick thinker Mrs. Wooly, the elementary school bus driver plows her bus into a Greenway super store.  Unfortunately, the hail storm is only the beginning, and soon the group of unsupervised kids has taken more permanent shelter inside the store while the world outside endures catastrophe after catastrophe.

Monument 14 is cleverly conceived as both a post-apocalyptic thriller and a sort of social experiment that brings together average, slightly nerdy Dean with Jake the jock and Niko, a boy scout always prepared type, and a herd of scared and/or bratty elementary school kids.  While the world outside is crumbling under freak weather events and the release of a military grade toxin that interacts with certain blood types to produce dangerous effects, a motley assortment of grade schoolers is learning to rely on each other to survive.  It's interesting to see how long the normal high school social construct holds up before it becomes apparent that it's becoming a thing of the past.

The three books follow the group of kids from their safe haven in the super store out into the destroyed world, starting with Dean as the narrator and branching out to other points of view as circumstances change.  The post-apocalyptic world Laybourne presents is terrifying, filled with people desperate to get by and people who are wreaking havoc unaware thanks to the chemical weapon leak.  The pace is quick, with the kids dodging near disasters of all kinds as they seek a more permanent kind of safety than the Greenway has to offer.  Despite the abundance of characters presented, Laybourne doesn't scrimp on the character development, and each kid young and old(er) has a personality all their own.

The Monument 14 books are can't-put-them-down thrillers that read fast and have you longing for a happy ending for the "family" of kids who were unexpectedly thrown together in the Greenway on one fateful day.  


9 comments:

  1. I have plenty of series I want to read that are all out. This year I've been focusing on reading a series at a time so, like you, I don't forget everything. This is one on my list. Can't wait to get to it.

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    1. Bump it up the list! It's definitely so much easier to just read a series all at once, isn't it?

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  2. I've read the first two books, but I haven't read the last one. I thought the second book ended in a good place and I wasn't sure what Laybourne wanted to accomplish with the last book. Maybe, I'll read it since you have such a positive review.

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    1. Definitely give the last one a read! I thought it tied things up rather nicely.

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  3. This is a smart strategy! I've had to reread some many series books ahead of the final entry because I don't remember where things left off. I don't mind rereading, but just waiting until it's complete is a much more sensible strategy.

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    1. I found I was just leaving way too many promising series unfinished when I was reading them as they were released. I'm a slow reader, so I tend not to do much re-reading, so this way is definitely working out better for me.

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  4. This series sounds really good! I'm definitely going to check it out. Thanks for stopping by my blog.

    Renee’ @ 2 Peas in a Pod

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  5. This sounds like something I'd like, and I always prefer completed series. Have you read James Marsden's dystopian YA Tomorrow series set in Australia?

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    1. Completed series are so much easier to keep track of. ;-) I haven't read that one, but I've heard good things, and it sounds like a series I'd definitely be interested in. I'll have to add to my wish list!

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