Virals
by Kathy Reichs
****
Tory Brennan was just an ordinary girl struggling to get through everything that was thrown at her.. Then it all turned downhill with a simple formation of a question in her mind... Whose name was on a single, badly damaged military dog tag? She always felt compelled to answer every mystery she came upon. Tory and her friends start investigating and end up in a lab trying to clean off the tags when everything goes wrong. Her and her friends tried to do the right thing for an infected wolf-dog pup that they found, that was being experimented on.. Next thing, the dog tags pointed them to a 40 year old missing persons case, and strange things were happening to them! Super-human things.. They had become virals! Infected by a designer virus, the group of friends starts a non-stop thrill ride all to solve a little mystery that became a huge mystery for them to work through.
I felt that Virals had a really good mystery, the way that Kathy Reichs unfolded the mystery was well thought out. It kept me guessing. The addition of the super-human abilities was what really grabbed my attention. I gave Virals four stars because I felt that some of the things that happened in were a little far fetched, like sophmores knowing how to pick locks.. Also I really wish that Tory was a bit older, the things she was doing seemed way too mature for someone thirteen years old.. But that's just me. All in all I really liked the book and would recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy and mystery.
4 comments:
I think you liked it better than I did -- here's my review from amazon:
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing start to a new YA series...
I was so excited about this release and had high hopes for a YA novel written by Kathy Reichs, the author of the Tempe Brennan forensic anthropology book series for adults but I was very disappointed in this first outing. My focus when buying YA is to please savvy and enthusiastic readers who are high school age teens. The age of the protagonist female (Tory) in this book at 14 really bothered me and I felt was written a bit too "young" for the activities she became engaged in with her cohort of boys from the local prep school they all attended and from the island where they all lived. She was a bit of a "know it all" just like her great aunt seems sometimes to be to me in all of the "Bones" books I've read! Although there were attempts made to educate the readers about the science, it seemed like it was lecture rather than true teen interaction and dialog. Is anyone but me tired of these supposed "brainiac" kids who all happen to be friends and form a little club of sorts to outsmart adults and/or outwit criminals?
The story was somewhat preposterous as she and the boys (so stereotypical as the nerd, the klutz and the quiet, strong type -- Shelton, Hi and Ben) do a lot of breaking and entering and engage in some unbelievable research, snooping, and sleuthing in terms of what their searches find. Of course the parents are absent and clueless about what their offspring are doing. Their fellow students at the high school are also cliche -- the "mean girls", the jock, and the really cute rich guy who flirts with our heroine even though he has a gorgeous girlfriend. I found the suspension of disbelief required to be just too much. Even with their new found powers (derived from what exactly? a supervirus?), the narrative defied my ability to be entertained and mostly irritated me.
The plot moved along at a good pace but the entire story, even though identified as fantasy with paranormal elements, was implausible and predictable. No surprises here. Others have suggested that this book is a sort of science-based Nancy Drew -- but I disagree -- Carolyn Keene wrote much more believable mystery stories with more finely nuanced characters.
Alas, it could have been a "smart" novel but it devolved into mediocrity and I'm sorry to say I won't be reading any more in what is sure to be a series. Perhaps OK for middle school but too "young" for secondary students or young adults.
I'm not that big on fantasy but the mystery part may catch my interest.
I will definately read this book to see what its really about becasue from what I read it couldn't be that bad Ms. Crawford.
I know! See! Aspen knows what I have to deal with!...
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