Teen reads
ZERO REPEAT FOREVER
by G.S. Prendergast (Simon & Schuster, $21) When teenager Raven, her boyfriend and his twin brother are sent away to a wilderness camp outside Calgary, they are saved from the first wave of an alien invasion. Superior beings called Nahx have begun laying waste to cities around the world. One of the invaders is Eighth (his rank in the scheme of things), a defective grunt who is obedient and enjoys breaking things. But something is slightly wrong with his programming and he deserts when his commander, Sixth, is killed. He meets Raven and the two form a bond out of necessity. The first in a series called The Nahx Invasions, this story is told from the alternating points of view of Raven and Eighth, with the latter’s take on humans and his origins the most interesting moments.
EVERLESS
by Sara Holland (Hachette, $25) Fans of fantasy fiction will find a lot that is familiar in this tale: a downtrodden protagonist with a mysterious past and a hint of supernatural powers as yet untapped. Seventeen-year-old Jules lives in the land of Sempera in Dickensian-like times with cottages, cobbled streets, carriages, nobles and servants. Here, though, time is currency, with the poor taxed and criminals punished by bleeding them of their lifespan, which is turned into coins the overlords use to extend their lives (a scenario similar to the Justin Timberlake movie In Time). Though this tale treads a tried and true path, Holland’s writing is pacy and enjoyable — expect more of the same in the next book of the series.
I AM TRAITOR
by Sif Sigmarsdottir (Hachette $20) What unfolds from the viewpoint of 14-yearold Amy is that London is subject to an alien invasion, with teenagers being sucked up by strange flying machines. Friends and family are disappearing, food is hard to come by, power is intermittent and there’s a curfew but that doesn’t mean there isn’t time for some tortured teen romance when Amy bumps into charming Caesar. The story is told from Amy’s perspective and in her diary entries in a breathless fashion. I found it hard to care about the intergalactic machinations behind the invasion, what the aliens were doing with the abducted teens and whether Amy’s mission with the resistance was going to be successful.