stormofpages 's review for:

Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

1.0

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Sheesh, what a bad book. This was our next Buddy Read and we really went downhill. The plot makes no sense – from a variety of natural disasters – some of which make sense, others… less so, to a break in at NORAD releasing chemical components with various effects. Like, the science doesn’t work that way. A group of kids get stuck at a massive supermarket called Greenways when all this mayhem goes down, and it’s like Walmart on drugs – it has everything they could possibly think of, including apparently specific parts to fix a school bus. Because that’s realistic. I didn’t like any of the characters, from the typical trope jocks to the whiny little kids. Our main character is so boring. We get some lovely shut-shaming of a thirteen year old girl – charming. The writing style is very juvenile – it reads like it should be middle grade, but then there is violence and lots of sexual discussions that make it very much not middle grade. I very soon started to hate-read this – it was our buddy pick and I did want to finish it – at least it was a quick read. That’s about as much credit as I can give this book.

Trigger warning – attempted sexual assault.