Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

Rating: 3- Good, Average, Alright, you name it
PLOT:

"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.

The first part, the earlier chapters were mind blowing. Either because the notion of a sudden disaster on the way to school is frightening for me or not knowing what the future brings makes me scared for the characters. The book's plot is like Survivor, only with apocalyptic elements, and of course, a percentage of the human population becoming zombies. I love the disasters and the chemical reactions and the dark dark sky.

I also like the idea: Stranded in a department store. I could think a lot of other ways for these kids to have fun in it, wisely though, they were able to have a close-to-harmonious day-to-day system. On the other hand, I don't like most of the characters. Dean, for example, loves Astrid, for reason not clearly said. Also there's this other girl, Sahalia. I know there are some over sexualized teenagers somewhere and their hopelessness inside the supermarket might make these kids feel alone and all, but I don't like the way Sahalia was portrayed, she only changed in the later part which is annoying, I mean I hope Miss Laybourne should give the girl some strength or good qualities, people are not black or white, bratty at first, changed later, a personality has too many facets but Sahalia wasn't given the chance for others to really get to know who she really is.

With having fourteen stranded children in one setting, the book lacks details. So all in all, it's plain average for me.