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knobbyknees 's review for:
The Third Eye
by Lois Duncan
I loved Lois Duncan's books when I was a teen. I had a conversation with someone about this book and it gave me the hankering to reread it. Luckily my library had the ebook on overdrive so I was able to check it out and read it the same night.
Karen Connors in New Mexico has had "hunches" all her life that she trusts and knows to be true. When her babysitting charge Bobby goes missing, she whispers to the young police officer involved in the search that she knows he's in a box. It's revealed that the box is a car trunk, and Karen's vision clears enough that she knows whose car Bobby is in. The officer returns with another missing child case to see if Karen has a "hunch" about that as well. Though Karen tries not to get involved with both the officer and other cases, she is forcibly dragged into a mass baby-kidnapping case that is a little too close to everyone involved.
The Third Eye was published in 1984 and I read it in the late 90s. This version has been updated to mention newer technology like cell phones, even though Karen still only calls people from where there would be landlines (gas stations, restaurants) and shuts her phone off to avoid other confrontation. The story aged fine for the most part, since a lot of the action could have happened where there was no cell signal. The writing is simple, and Karen's feelings are a little clunky and obvious (she falls in love within 2 days, because of course) but it held the same nostalgic punch as I expected.
I think my favorite part about the updated version is that there's an interview with Lois Duncan at the very end, reflecting on the new version (published in the 2010s, I believe). The interviewers are Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan of The Fug Girls (who have also written a few books) and Duncan's description of how she updated the book for the recent publication was pretty interesting. And heartbreakingly, Duncan also describes how her own daughter (for whom the book is dedicated) was murdered a few years after the book's publication, which I did not know. The murderer has still not been found.
If I were to have read this book for the first time today, it would not get a high rating — YA as a genre has so much more to offer these days than a simple story about a teenage psychic. But Duncan was a groundbreaker back in the day and the story obviously stuck with me for over 20 years, and this was one of my favorite books in the 90s, so for nostalgia's sake it's probably a 4- or 5-star. Hence the no rating :)
Karen Connors in New Mexico has had "hunches" all her life that she trusts and knows to be true. When her babysitting charge Bobby goes missing, she whispers to the young police officer involved in the search that she knows he's in a box. It's revealed that the box is a car trunk, and Karen's vision clears enough that she knows whose car Bobby is in. The officer returns with another missing child case to see if Karen has a "hunch" about that as well. Though Karen tries not to get involved with both the officer and other cases, she is forcibly dragged into a mass baby-kidnapping case that is a little too close to everyone involved.
The Third Eye was published in 1984 and I read it in the late 90s. This version has been updated to mention newer technology like cell phones, even though Karen still only calls people from where there would be landlines (gas stations, restaurants) and shuts her phone off to avoid other confrontation. The story aged fine for the most part, since a lot of the action could have happened where there was no cell signal. The writing is simple, and Karen's feelings are a little clunky and obvious (she falls in love within 2 days, because of course) but it held the same nostalgic punch as I expected.
I think my favorite part about the updated version is that there's an interview with Lois Duncan at the very end, reflecting on the new version (published in the 2010s, I believe). The interviewers are Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan of The Fug Girls (who have also written a few books) and Duncan's description of how she updated the book for the recent publication was pretty interesting. And heartbreakingly, Duncan also describes how her own daughter (for whom the book is dedicated) was murdered a few years after the book's publication, which I did not know. The murderer has still not been found.
If I were to have read this book for the first time today, it would not get a high rating — YA as a genre has so much more to offer these days than a simple story about a teenage psychic. But Duncan was a groundbreaker back in the day and the story obviously stuck with me for over 20 years, and this was one of my favorite books in the 90s, so for nostalgia's sake it's probably a 4- or 5-star. Hence the no rating :)