"I am trapped in the dark and something is biting me."
Scott Sigler's YA novel Alive plunges a twelve-year-old girl into an adult body and throws her straight into danger. When M. Savage wakes up, she doesn't even know her own name. What she does know is that instead of waking up to a home-cooked birthday breakfast, she is pinned to the bottom of a lightless box. When she escapes, she is in a room full of coffins just like hers, each with a name inscribed at the base. Taking on the identity "Em", Savage breaks five more kids out of their coffins in the hope that they'll know where they are, but it soon becomes evident that these twelve-year-olds are older than they think, and will have to live up to their newfound age if they are to survive. The Grownups aren't coming to rescue them. If Em and her friends don't escape on their own, they may never see sunlight again.
Sigler's writing captures Em's predicament perfectly. Strong-willed and terrified, Savage is truly a child in a young woman's body--she thinks like a kid, acts like a kid, and talks like a kid. When the lives of five other "children" on the line, Em shoulders a great responsibility in order to ensure everyone's safety. She takes risks not because they excite her but because they need to be done, and follows a combination of logic and common sense to make her way toward what she hope is the way out. These weights cause her to gradually mature inside, transitioning from helpless innocent to battle-hardened leader over the course of little more than three hundred pages. Her internal development is simultaneously subtle and tangible, making Em a character easy to root for.
As for the rest of the cast, Sigler has no qualms about numbers. The size of Em's group waxes and wanes, adding and subtracting sympathetic, engaging characters with each shift. Sadly, however, despite the number of boys she encounters, male characters in this novel tend to be stereotypical. One is a mule-headed hunter driven by single-minded determination, while another is content to do as he's told and provide emotional support as necessary. While this detracts a good deal from the story, a hint of realism is buried within each troubled soul who appears on the page.
Alive is relatively well-paced. Countless hours of trekking through the eerie corridors outside the coffin-room are coupled nicely with stomach-churning discoveries, action scenes, and startling plot twists. Violence doesn't crop up very often, and when it does it has just the right amount of gore to be realistic without going overboard. Since Em is a very logic-driven character, such scenes are not usually super emotional in that desperate, swept-up-in-the-moment sort of way. Still, when horrors strike, readers may very well find themselves satisfyingly engaged. Also present are common swear words the teens occasionally let slip and occasional romantic references. While side characters sneak off to be alone together, Em sets aside her minor attractions in the name of getting the job done. At one point, certain supporting characters go about shirtless; this is not described in great detail, likely because it disturbs Em on a fundamental level.
I would recommend this book to mid- to older teens interested in a strong female protagonist who will do anything to free herself and her companions. It's intriguing premise, promising characters, and powerful action add up to a great story that is, at times, almost chilling. Though M. Savage's head overrules her heart when making decisions, she is a highly sympathetic protagonist with an arc to watch out for. Sadly, her more masculine companions don't play a very big role, which will hopefully be remedied in the upcoming sequel. For a compelling plot, an interesting cast, and mysteries that keep readers on their toes, I award Scott Sigler's Alive four stars out of five.
Sigler's writing captures Em's predicament perfectly. Strong-willed and terrified, Savage is truly a child in a young woman's body--she thinks like a kid, acts like a kid, and talks like a kid. When the lives of five other "children" on the line, Em shoulders a great responsibility in order to ensure everyone's safety. She takes risks not because they excite her but because they need to be done, and follows a combination of logic and common sense to make her way toward what she hope is the way out. These weights cause her to gradually mature inside, transitioning from helpless innocent to battle-hardened leader over the course of little more than three hundred pages. Her internal development is simultaneously subtle and tangible, making Em a character easy to root for.
As for the rest of the cast, Sigler has no qualms about numbers. The size of Em's group waxes and wanes, adding and subtracting sympathetic, engaging characters with each shift. Sadly, however, despite the number of boys she encounters, male characters in this novel tend to be stereotypical. One is a mule-headed hunter driven by single-minded determination, while another is content to do as he's told and provide emotional support as necessary. While this detracts a good deal from the story, a hint of realism is buried within each troubled soul who appears on the page.
Alive is relatively well-paced. Countless hours of trekking through the eerie corridors outside the coffin-room are coupled nicely with stomach-churning discoveries, action scenes, and startling plot twists. Violence doesn't crop up very often, and when it does it has just the right amount of gore to be realistic without going overboard. Since Em is a very logic-driven character, such scenes are not usually super emotional in that desperate, swept-up-in-the-moment sort of way. Still, when horrors strike, readers may very well find themselves satisfyingly engaged. Also present are common swear words the teens occasionally let slip and occasional romantic references. While side characters sneak off to be alone together, Em sets aside her minor attractions in the name of getting the job done. At one point, certain supporting characters go about shirtless; this is not described in great detail, likely because it disturbs Em on a fundamental level.
I would recommend this book to mid- to older teens interested in a strong female protagonist who will do anything to free herself and her companions. It's intriguing premise, promising characters, and powerful action add up to a great story that is, at times, almost chilling. Though M. Savage's head overrules her heart when making decisions, she is a highly sympathetic protagonist with an arc to watch out for. Sadly, her more masculine companions don't play a very big role, which will hopefully be remedied in the upcoming sequel. For a compelling plot, an interesting cast, and mysteries that keep readers on their toes, I award Scott Sigler's Alive four stars out of five.
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