Daniel’s
grandpa suffers from short term memory loss and awkward moments of
lucidity and insanity. The old man begins sharing violent stories from
his “work” as old co workers begin popping up to “check on”
him. Daniel realizes there is more to gramps’ unsettling stories than
he’d like to believe and more to the thinly veiled threats from the
creepy co workers.
Kill Switch is a short book I hoped would be an entertaining reprieve for my teen
book discussion. The plot was promising, the concept interesting. And
the first half delivered a satisfying combination of mystery and humor
(the car scene! The car scene!).
Then
along came the “kill switch,” when Daniel abruptly and illogically becomes violent as he guards his grandfather. The moments of
violence made no sense to me and my teen readers. We were like, “Huh? What
was that violent act for?” The ending was untirely unsatisfying and
rather unbelievable. We spent most of discussion poking holes in the
plot.
So,
not the best read. Not my favorite. Not terrible either and it was
fast. You can’t love every book but at least we had fun laughing about
the ridiculous plot discrepancies during discussion!
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2012 Pages: 176
Rating: 2 stars Source: Public Library
