The gift that keeps on giving

This was my “cannonballer says!” square for bingo and it’s kind of a twofer as maydays’ comment on alwaysanswersb’s review doubled down on my decision to buy the book.  And honestly, enough of you guys have recommended this one that I was leaning toward buying this before maydays let me know this was written by Mike Carey (I’m a huge comic book reader but keep my cannonball reviews to prose), but alwaysanswersb really made me interested.

I’m spending a lot of words on the review, but much like AAB, I don’t want to give too much away plot-wise.  You’ve also probably read 15 reviews of this one, you’ve probably picked up the broad strokes.  Military-type compound seen from the point of view of Melanie, an advanced member of the group of possibly dangerous children detained there.  I will say I appreciated that Carey managed to write his no-bullshit ex-soldier, frightened teenaged cadet, reluctantly maternal black female teacher, and precocious child equally well (he subverts the typical pitfalls of writing believable child characters by making our protagonist’s unusual maturity part of her narrative arc, but still makes her recognizably trusting and naive). Each character acts according to well defined behavioral patterns; one of my pet peeves in genre fiction is when characters are flat and clearly only serve to move the plot around, not the case here.

Definitely worth the read, not just for the thrills and mystery of the main story, but as a reminder that just because someone agrees with you doesn’t mean they’re on your side, and vice versa.

Thanks for the recommendation, cannonballers!