From School Library Journal
Grade 7-9-After his best friend dies in a plane crash, 16-year-old Ken Pritchard keeps thinking of a folktale about a monster that hid his soul, ensuring eternal life. Determined to avoid death himself, Ken finds a woman who removes his soul from his body. At first he is pleased; as in the folktale, he gains physical invulnerability, along with a respite from his misery. But, as readers will suspect from the many creepy details Ken willfully ignores, the rest of the folktale comes true as well. The woman is a zombie master, and he has become a modern-day monster partially under her control. Ken's increasingly desperate first-person narration, as he struggles to find his hidden soul and escape the zombie master's ever more brutal commands, makes for a gripping read. Particularly well rendered are the scuba-diving scenes in the shark-infested waters of the Caribbean and under the thick ice on a wintry Adirondack lake. Sleator spends little time on the spiritual or emotional consequences of Ken's transformation, and characterization is secondary to plot development, but teenaged horror fans won't mind. From the photo of a just-unearthed skull on its cover to the plot twist in its final pages, this fast-paced, suspenseful book will appeal to reluctant and avid readers alike.
-Beth Wright, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Book Description
The "brisk, addictive" thriller, now in paperback!
Sleator, a recognized master of sci-fi and horror and a favorite of reluctant readers, is a paperback powerhouse, with more than 600,000 copies of his novels sold in softcover. Here he gives fans a spin on the classic zombie story, following sixteen-year-old Ken as he bargains with a psychic to gain immortality, only to awaken one night with blood-spattered clothes and the realization that he's sold more than his soul.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
