Meet Me in the Strange

Gr 10 Up—A pair of teens escape their troubled homes and follow a rock star on tour. Davi has grown up in a hotel his grandfather owns. He has his own suite of rooms and spends his time doing whatever he wants. He meets Anna at a concert and, when she tells him of her difficult life at home, helps her to escape. Together they follow the tour of Django, their favorite musician. This book touts a setting of a "retro-futuristic city," which explains some of the odd phrases used throughout: Apollonauts instead of astronauts; glister-boy, stupido. Music is listened to on record albums. The frequent mentions of the Apollo moon landing set this novel in the early 1970s, and little-to-none of the story is "futuristic" enough to change that apparent setting. Teens may lose interest or have difficulty relating to the obsolete technology and the characters' odd manner of speaking. Each chapter consists of four or five paragraphs, but rather than a fast-paced, page-turning action plot, this story plods. There isn't enough world-building for readers to differentiate this world from the one we live in, nor is there enough detail about each character for teens to sympathize with any of them.