Spill Zone

Aaaaahhhh, when is the next book coming out?! I need to know what happens next!

Really interesting premise - I love that the “incident” is allowed to stay ill-defined. A big part of the creep factor is that no one even knows what happened.

And speaking of creep factor, this does creepy so well. The concepts are eerie, and the art is amazingly macabre. It all ties together to create an amazing mood. This is an excellent contribution to weird fiction, all around.

Will definitely be an attention grabber for students - the action is faced paced and the mystery is still a cliff-hanger by the end. It's genuinely creepy and the art and color story is in good service to the plot and creep-factor. Scott's dialogue was better in the Uglies series. He had some truly bad repeated catchphrases in the Leviathan series and the same is true here here as well, particularly the doll's stilted dialogue - is she cussing or saying fudge, which is it? I'm also all for authentic swears in a teen book, but this just feels like he threw in a few F*'s to try to edge-up the book, they didn't land well and felt unnecessary a few times. Overall, interested to see where this series goes.

Pros: atmospheric, interesting characters, intriguing story

Cons: a little slow

No one knows what caused the Spill Zone, but its dangers are numerous. Addison supports herself and her younger sister by sneaking into her old hometown, now a quarantine zone, and selling the pictures she takes. She stays safe by obeying a set of rules. Now she's offered a large sum of money to bring something back from the zone, but it means breaking the rules...

This is the first volume and so mostly sets up the spill zone and the characters. It's a bit slow, but that's due to the many panelled atmospheric nature of the artwork. While the artwork wasn't entirely to my liking, it does embody the post-apocalyptic feel of the city and the creepy stuff going on inside it. It's also highly expressive, showing a lot of motion and emotion.

Addison's pretty interesting as a protagonist, gutsy if not terribly business savvy. Her obvious love for her sister shines through. I have to admit, I'm most intrigued by Vespertine, her sister's telepathic, snarky doll.

The story ends with several mysteries introduced and I'm very curious to see what happens next.