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A review by andipants
Ransom by Lois Duncan
3.0
I have a soft spot for this sort of teen thriller. When I was a kid, I used to daydream about what I would do if I were kidnapped, or in a natural disaster, or some other dangerous and dramatic situation where I got to go around rescuing people, making daring escapes, etc. Books like this are perfect fodder for that sort of fantasy, so if course I devoured them, and I'll still grab one occasionally when I want something exciting and intellectually light.
This was a fairly middle-of-the-road example of the genre - it wasn't amazing, but neither was it terrible. The action and suspense were solid, but the characters were pretty flat and the plot resolutions were a little pat. It also seemed pretty weird that it didn't ring any alarm bells for one single kid when the "substitute bus driver" didn't have any idea of his route?! Chalk it up to it being written in the early 80s, so I guess maybe things were laxer then, but even so...
This was a fairly middle-of-the-road example of the genre - it wasn't amazing, but neither was it terrible. The action and suspense were solid, but the characters were pretty flat and the plot resolutions were a little pat. It also seemed pretty weird that it didn't ring any alarm bells for one single kid when the "substitute bus driver" didn't have any idea of his route?! Chalk it up to it being written in the early 80s, so I guess maybe things were laxer then, but even so...