Enders

Gr 7 Up—Callie successfully brought down Prime Destinations, but that wasn't the end. While she and her family are at the mall, another Starter with a chip in her head has her body hijacked and is turned into a living bomb-all while the Old Man addresses Callie directly through her mind. The protagonist is determined to take him down once and for all and to regain control of her mind and body for good. Price's writing is functional at best and clichéd at worst, too frequently leaning on crutches (like emotion flashing in a character's eyes), but the point here is the story, not its telling. While the first half of Enders drags, especially after the pervasive tension in Starters (Delacorte, 2012), things pick up once Callie is kidnapped by Hyden, the Old Man's son, who opposes his father's work. Her attraction to Hyden feels forced and tacked-on. In the end, all questions are answered and all conflicts resolved (some rather quickly and a little too perfectly), and the book's hopeful ending points toward society's eventual recovery from the effects of the Spore Wars and the generational conflict it caused. Recommended strictly for hard-core fans of the first book who can overlook this sequel's flaws.—Gretchen Kolderup, New York Public Library