Strangelets | Book Review

Strangelets

Written by: Michelle Gagnon

Number of Pages: 288

Average Rating: 3.4/5 stars

My Rating: 2/5 stars

Published: April 9, 2013

Read in February 2018

Summary According to Goodreads

17-year-old Sophie lies on her deathbed in California, awaiting the inevitable loss of her battle with cancer. 17-year-old Declan stares down two armed thugs in a back alley in Galway, Ireland. 18-year-old Anat attempts to traverse a booby-trapped tunnel between Israel and Egypt.

All three strangers should have died at the exact same moment, thousands of miles apart. Instead, they awake together in an abandoned hospital - only to discover they’re not alone. Three other teens from different places on the globe are trapped with them. Somebody or something seems to be pulling the strings. With their individual clocks ticking, they must band together if they’re to have any hope of surviving. 

Soon they discover that they’ve been trapped in a future that isn’t of their making: a deadly, desolate world at once entirely familiar and utterly strange. Each teen harbours a secret, but only one holds the key that could get them home. As the truth comes to light Sophie, Declan, Anat, and the rest must decide what to do with a second chance at life - if they can survive to claim it. 

My Thoughts

Full disclosure, I only picked this up because I’d received an e-book copy from NetGalley years ago, and figured it was only fair that I finally read it. 

My first issue with this novel was the lack of character development, and overall blandness of the characters themselves. They are described as being seventeen and eighteen years old, but their actions made them seem much younger. They made rash decisions, and all had similar voices making the story blur together in ways. And don’t even get me started on the insta-love. 

This novel started out very well - I was engaged in the writing, and the mystery kept my attention. The story was so unusual, I just wanted to know what was going to happen, but then it became so cliche that I lost all interest quite quickly. As the story passed the halfway point, the plot just kept becoming more and more repetitive, and I still struggle to pinpoint where exactly the climax was. 

I think the mistake that I made was that I went into this novel not knowing anything about it. From the cover and sort of vague synopsis on the back, I was expecting a thriller with some spook to it - but that’s not what I got. This novel could have been so much better than it was, and I’m disappointed that I couldn’t get more out of it.  

If this novel was written in first person, but alternating perspectives, I think it would have had a stronger impact on me. I felt so detached from the characters, and so disinterested. Overall, this novel fell flat for me, and I am not in a rush to read another from this author. It was boring, sort of annoying, and nothing unique.