Unraveling

Gr 8 Up—Janelle's life hasn't been easy. She helps raise her younger brother while her father busily heads the counterintelligence unit of San Diego's FBI office, and her bipolar mother is busy, well, hiding out in the bedroom. Life becomes more complicated once Janelle's hit by a truck. Instead of dying from her extensive injuries, she's revived by previously ignored classmate Ben Michaels, who isn't talking about what happened. Surprisingly, Janelle has more immediate concerns: her father is investigating gruesome deaths involving disfigured bodies and some sort of countdown timer/explosive device. Thanks to her knowledge of his likely passwords, his work laptop is no problem for her to hack, leaving Janelle and her friend Alex with all of the frightening facts of the case and a determination to solve it. The characterizations are excellent: Janelle's friends and family, as well as her new acquaintances, are fully fleshed out. The beginning of the book reads a bit like Carol Plum-Ucci's Streams of Babel (Harcourt, 2008), as Janelle is convinced that only a terrorist's plot could explain the bodies and countdown timer. However, the story then veers into a multiple universe theory that, while explained, is not completely explored. This and any other concerns are minor; in general, readers will enjoy the nonstop action and romance.—Kelly Jo Lasher, Middle Township High School, Cape May Court House, NJ