Monument 14
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4.5 • 192 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Actress/screenwriter Laybourne's debut ably turns what could have been yet another postapocalyptic YA novel into a tense, claustrophobic, and fast-paced thriller. In the not-too-distant future, a sudden hailstorm just one small part of a massive environmental cataclysm forces 14 Colorado students on their way to school to take refuge in a superstore. Cut off from the previously ubiquitous Network (with only one old TV as an occasional information source), they must cope with the standard personality conflicts and also a biochemical weapon leak that causes behavioral shifts in some of the kids. Bookish Dean narrates, observing his own jealousies and concerns, as well as the way the popular kids like football players Jake and Brayden, and diving champ Astrid are forced to question their place in the new social order. Although violence (including a sexual assault) is pervasive, it's rarely graphic and never gratuitous. Laybourne successfully develops a large cast of characters of assorted ages, and if the ending seems designed to tease a sequel, the story still stands well on its own. Ages 13 up.
Customer Reviews
Read it in one day...brilliant, absolutely brilliant
The best part about this book is how human everyone is. The character development is very well written, and with such a large cast the author perfectly describes them all in detail, their quirks, their personalities, everything. The plot is heart wrenching and very real, and at times terrifying. White knuckles, edge of your seat type stuff. The excitement starts RIGHT away, and does not stop. The end of the book is a heck of a cliffhanger. Please read this book and support the author so they can write more. To the author: you have a gift. I loved this book so so much, and will gladly tell everyone I know to read it. I'm 28 years old and still found the characters and relationships so relatable. Seriously good stuff here. Thank you.
READ PLEASE
this books Is worth $100.00 from the beginning to the end I could keep my eyes off I read in one day. I'm 14, this book is freaking amazing I love it more than the hunger games, divergent, fault in our stars, EVERYTHING! it's amazing😍😍
Eh.
It was really boring to me. Not the book for action-readers like me. Okay, so basically, a bunch of kids get stranded in a big store, some go crazy, some get High, and one gets raped. So yeah, no big plot, and definitely not for tweens. Seriously tho.