 | Rules for disappearing Author: Elston, Ashley | |
| Price: $7.37 | ||
Summary:
High school student "Meg" has changed identities so often that she hardly knows who she is anymore, and her family is falling apart, but she knows that two of the rules of witness protection are be forgettable and do not make friends--but in her new home in Louisiana a boy named Ethan is making that difficult.
| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: UG Reading Level: 4.20 Points: 12.0 Quiz: 161754 | Reading Counts Information: Interest Level: 9-12 Reading Level: 4.50 Points: 20.0 Quiz: 66239 | |
Full Text Reviews:
Bulletin for the Center... - 06/01/2013 For months Meg’s family has been on the run, yanked from one safe house and shuttled to another on a moment’s notice. Meg’s had about all she can take-from her series of bogus identities (“Meg” being the most recent), to her mother’s retreat into a bottle, to her younger sister’s social withdrawal, to her own lack of friends and any semblance of normalcy. Stuck now in Natchitoches, Louisiana, Meg is determined not to get close to anyone, but her intentions dissolve under the advances of Ethan Landry, who resolves to break through her defenses. He rightly suspects something is amiss in Meg’s family, but she couldn’t give him any information about their circumstances even if she wanted to, because her father stubbornly refuses to say how they landed in Witness Protection. Eventually Meg’s drunken mother lets slip that it was Meg who got them all into this situation, and as Meg tries to reclaim her repressed memories, pieces begin to fall into place and she takes off for her old neighborhood in Phoenix to ferret out hidden evidence that could get her family off the hook. Of course, Ethan is right by her side from road trip to break-in, and if the chills of the chase aren’t compelling enough, the steamy-but-chaste romance should push this over the edge. Though the last-minute twist Elston sneaks into the tale is a little contrived, it doesn’t matter; it’s enough that readers can project right into the damsel-in-distress role and trust that a farm boy knight in a borrowed 1970 Mustang will come riding to the rescue. EB - Copyright 2013 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
School Library Journal - 06/01/2013 Gr 9 Up—Meg Jones and her family have been under Witness Protection for eight months and have been relocated six times. Any day it might happen again: U.S. Marshals will arrive with no warning to shut down their lives and transfer them. The family will be given new personal histories to memorize, new names, and new appearances. They must never make a mistake. They must always stay in character. It's no wonder that Meg has nightmares, her little sister barely speaks, and her mom drinks. As for Mr. Jones, Meg blames him for all of it. Whatever he's done or seen to land them in this predicament has destroyed the family forever. The novel's first half is tense and captivating, as the Joneses adapt to a new home in rural Louisiana. The characters struggle under severe uncertainty and dysfunction. Their new home is dreary, they have very little money, and every bump in the night could mean trouble. Some rules of Meg's new life: Don't make friends, don't trust anybody, don't use the Internet. Again and again, she tries to discover who is after them and what happened last June, but her father won't discuss it. Elston then breaks the tension when Meg falls in love, confronts a repressed memory, and hits the road with her new boyfriend to free her family for good. From there, the plot loses emotional resonance and becomes implausible, but readers will likely enjoy the action. Everything works out in the end, of course, but a single unfinished story line suggests a forthcoming sequel.—Denise Ryan, Middlesex Middle School, Darien, CT - Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
