The Living

I do happen to love my YA full of action and intensity and The Living definitely met those expectations. This was pretty much as intense as it sounds. I've heard people say this is like a YA Lost without the smoke monster weirdness, and it definitely has that vibe, though I think it reminded me more of I Shouldn't Be Alive for YA. Either way, The Living is a super interesting read.

Something I appreciated was the incidental diversity. Shy is (half?) Mexican American and many of the important side characters have diverse racial backgrounds, which was really nice to see. And while there are absolutely some themes of race and class coming into play, The Living doesn't read as an issue book (and it's not supposed to), and overall, I think it was very nicely handled.

I will say that the ending was kind of predictable and the confrontation between Shy and a particular baddie was, shall we say, a teensie bit evil bad guy Hollywood cliché? Also, there was a thing with super aggressive sharks that I wasn't totally buying, but the issues were minor and I still definitely enjoyed reading. Now The Hunted just has to come out so I can find out what happens. frets

I'm giving The Living 4/5 stars and I recommend it to those who enjoy fast-paced, Adventure/Disaster-type books.

NC HS BOB has second book on reading list (which always drives me nuts) so need to read this first! Once the plot started going de la Pena really moved. Very realistic apocalyptic violence, with dead bodies and murder, etc. so certainly for older teen audiences. Other than Shy, the characters felt like stereotypical tropes, which is surprising coming from de la Pena. Think teens will be sucked into the fast pace and the ending is such a cliffhanger they'll want to read the second.

This was a book where there was a LOT going on (corporate espionage, medical thriller, extreme weather, shark attacks, secret islands) but also still had sort of long stretches that I found very boring? But also note that “survival” is not really my particular jam.

I really liked the diversity and class issues here and I thought those were handled really well. Shy's a good narrator–a smart, observant teenage boy who's thoughtful, but also horny.

I picked this up because I wanted to maybe booktalk it for 7th & 8th graders who love Hunger Games etc, but I think it's a little too ~adult~ in terms of language and death/sex stuff? I mean I think there are definitely individual 7th/8th graders who would dig this but I don't feel comfortable pitching it to an entire class. I think high schoolers looking for a good adventure/survival story should like it a lot.