Title: Dangerous
Author: Shannon Hale
Genres: science fiction
Pages: 400
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review copy: the lovely library
Availability: March 4, 2014
Summary: Maisie Danger Brown just wanted to get away from home for a bit, see something new. She never intended to fall in love. And she never imagined stumbling into a frightening plot that kills her friends and just might kill her, too. A plot that is already changing life on Earth as we know it. There’s no going back. She is the only thing standing between danger and annihilation.
From NY Times bestselling author Shannon Hale comes a novel that asks, How far would you go to save the ones you love? And how far would you go to save everyone else? [Image and summary via Goodreads]
Review: Dangerous is one of those books you pick up to read and then suddenly five hours have passed, the sun’s setting, and you haven’t moved an inch from where you’re sitting. This is a fast paced sci-fi book with all the fixings: Technology! Bad guys! Outer space! Romance!**
It starts out slow, with the introduction of the heroine Maisie Danger Brown and her incredibly lovable parents. Her mother is from Paraguay and her father is a hopeless jokester. The two home-school Maisie, who dreams of being the first one-armed astronaut in outer space. Her partner in genius nerdiness is her best friend and fellow home-schooler Luther. Maisie’s relationship with her family and friends was incredibly heartwarming to read.
After Maisie goes away to space camp, the story quickly speeds up and continues to accelerate until the end. Maisie goes from awkward, nerdy homeschooler to full blown, on-the-run superhero within a hundred pages. She certainly lives up to her middle name. This is a book that captures the spirit of ‘well, that escalated quickly.’
The moral grey areas presented in Dangerous are left open ended. Do the ends justify the means? How far is it okay to go for the greater good? And so on. While these questions were interesting food for thought, it would have been nice for some of the morally sketchy parts of the book to be addressed – think Ender’s game and the use of children in military activities. Not to mention some of Wilder’s more questionable pick-up lines…
Though the romance and plot twists teetered on the inexplicable side at times, the snappy dialogue and fast paced story more than made up for it.
Recommendation: Get it soon.
Shannon Hale: On neutral characters and relating to the specific
**Though I couldn’t help but get incredibly skeeved out by the guy who’s all “hey foxy Latina~” at Maisie. Sadly, my ship did not sail, though it was good and seaworthy.
Oh geez, I picked this one up and totally got hooked into the first few chapters before reminding myself that I have other books to get to in my TBR! Intrigued to see how it handles those themes, because those can make or break a book for me, I find. Also, I already ship Luther + Maisie, but that ship is doomed to sink, isn’t it? :S A wee bit worried about the pick-up lines, now.
It’s definitely a book that hooks you in! Dangerous raises a lot of interesting moral dilemmas, but I have mixed feelings about how they were handled (and don’t get me started on Wilder’s pick-up lines…). Hope you like the book!