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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A book that would be a whole lot better if it didn't treat being fat as a defining characteristic of a person. That being said, it works pretty well as an examination of conditioning in people, and how it can be pushed to troubling ends. It's tempting to see several different allegories at work here, though the epilogue comes down on only the most literal interpretation.
Would make an interesting pre-read for Gravity's Rainbow, a book that takes the notion of conditioning and pushes it in interesting (probably.impossible) directions.
Would make an interesting pre-read for Gravity's Rainbow, a book that takes the notion of conditioning and pushes it in interesting (probably.impossible) directions.
Not a bad read, but it's definitely geared towards younger kids.
Oh my god so entertaining! This is written for teens, and it’s really short, so it’s a super quick entertaining read! Much needed after reading John Updike blabber on for 300 pages. This is like a Goosebumps or Twilight Zone episode, it gets pretty dark though! It really has that horror anthology show feel. Really entertaining quick book. It has some outdated tropes but a lot of media from the time was like that so it wasn’t a big deal. Great fun quick read with some surprisingly dark stuff in the second half! I also really like the sense of hope at the end.
In an unspecified time in the future, five sixteen year old orphans are kidnapped and placed in a giant structure filled with stairs. In order to survive, they must bend to the whims of a red machine, which rewards them with food for performing certain tasks.
Quick and engaging read. An interesting look at a behaviorist model and how it could be used in awful ways. If you like "The Wave" by Strasser.
Quick and engaging read. An interesting look at a behaviorist model and how it could be used in awful ways. If you like "The Wave" by Strasser.
I really enjoyed this book and waffled whether it was 4 star worthy - I think it's close. The book cover that I got from the library was so much better than the one listed here and the author photo on the back (William Sleator hanging out in a lawn chair drinking a beer looking off to the side???) is the best author photo ever! The story was well told and it seemed surprisingly modern while at the same time kind of dated in that is just seemed like so many of those social experiments (prisoner/prison guard) done in the 70s. I did hate that the most despicable character had to be the "piggish" fat girl, but otherwise, well told.
This book was so amazing. My brain is exploded and I do not know what to do with myself now.
I remember this being the first book I read that was dark and weird and twisted. The first book that wasn't meant to be liked. I remember the trainwreck feeling while reading it, not wanting to look, but unable not to look...
So I'd not read this book in years and years. Honestly, I think I read this when I was maybe 12 or 13? Hard to recall, but I seem to remember it being in an anthology of sorts. Recently got reminded of it and was able to track down a copy to read again! This book really stuck in my memory, so re-reading it was a bit of a nostalgia trip. This is a short book - would probably be classified as YA these days? - and easy to knock out in a few hours, but in my mind very worth it! Some good old-fashioned 70s sci-fi dystopia? Sure. Anyway - I will spoil a bit so go no further if you don't want to be spoiled - but this book is about five orphans who get stuck in this weird tower...with staircases everywhere, and no visible entrances or exits...and no accessible roof or floor...and the kids have no idea where they are or why they're there. It's pretty easy to figure out early on it must be some kind of experiment and thus it is. A conditioning experiment, to be sure, run in quite horrific fashion, to determine if the kids can be made to do anything as long as they are properly rewarded (by food). Of course, the majority of this you don't find out for sure until the very end, so the beauty of this book is that you feel trapped and confused along with the kids as you read. You don't understand what's going on or what the kids are supposed to be doing. What is this tower of stairs? What is this food machine doing? Where are the "grown ups"? And so the imagery in this book really stuck with me and I to this day have the memory in my head of these kids traversing the stairways, dancing for food and everywhere white light. Very strong visual imagery, although that may just be my overactive childhood imagination! Still, it's a great concept and Sleator executes it brilliantly. The only thing that horrifies me even more now is seeing how terrible some of these kids are. Blossom and Oliver in particular are just brutal and nasty. Abigail eventually slides into depravity as well. Maybe it's been too long since I was sixteen, but I was just stunned by how terrible these kids were. Of course, that's probably part of the point. Deprive people of food and peace and comfort...and put them in a strange environment...and watch their true nature come out. It's inspiring (as it's meant to be) to see Peter and Lola fight the machine and slowly starve instead of obeying the cruel dictates of their torture chamber. And as for the other kids...well, they are broken and the book doesn't end with much hope for them. This book is brilliantly imaginative and darkly horrific and while the characters aren't given a lot of depth, they are all very distinctive to be sure. I was also impressed by the dialogue - sometimes authors aren't good at writing kids' dialogue, but this felt pretty appropriate (to the time) to how kids actually talk. Really glad I re-read this (approximately twenty years since the last time I read it...)
This is probably the most "what was the one..." book I've ever come across, and with good reason. This book is bonkers. (And still shelved in JF here at Ludington when, jesus christ, if I'd read this while I was hanging out in JF, I'd've needed a therapist. I still might. HoS is fuuuuucked uppppp. This is totally YA fic.) Somehow, even more fucked up now then when I read it as a kid? This is some Cube/Milgram experiment shit.
Dump five orphaned kids in a secret bunker full of nothing but stairs. Subject them to a conditioning experiment that rewards them when they harm each other. Go.
Rereading this as an adult, I find Sleator's actual dialogue and character development to be a little clunky, but nothing that should shy you away from reading this.
Dump five orphaned kids in a secret bunker full of nothing but stairs. Subject them to a conditioning experiment that rewards them when they harm each other. Go.
Rereading this as an adult, I find Sleator's actual dialogue and character development to be a little clunky, but nothing that should shy you away from reading this.