Book Review: Dark Energy by Robision Wells

Title: Dark Energy
Author: Robison Wells
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: March 29, 2016
Pages: 288
Source: Publisher
Format: ARC
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Science Fiction

               

WE ARE NOT ALONE

Five days ago, a massive UFO crashed in the Midwest, killing thousands of people. Since then, nothing–or no one–has come out.

THEY HAVE ARRIVED

If it were up to Alice, she’d be watching all of this on the news from Miami, Florida. Instead, she’s the newest student at a boarding school not far from the crash site–because her dad is the director of special projects for NASA, and if anything’s a special project, it’s this.

AND THERE’S NO GOING BACK

A shell-shocked country is waiting, glued to televisions and computer screens, for a sign of what the future holds. But when the aliens emerge, they’re nothing like what Alice expected. And only one thing is clear: Nothing will ever be the same again.

This book was fabulous!

Then, why, you ask, did I only give it a 3 Owl Rating?

The ending. The ending was just too neat and tidy for my liking. In my opinion, just because a book is a stand alone, which Dark Energy is, I don't think it should have neatly packaged ending. I love a good messy ending.

So here are all the things that I loved about this book.

Dark Energy is smartly written, highly engaging, and fast paced.

The dialogue between characters is flawless, especially between Alice and her father. As I was reading, all I could think about was how accurate and authentic the banter was between these two characters.

I liked the mystery we got about the aliens that came to Earth. I liked how seamlessly the mystery revealed itself. One part of the puzzle I felt was pretty darn easy to solve, but how that puzzle piece fit in with the rest of the pieces was what stumped me. I enjoyed that the various discoveries made about the aliens were sufficiently creepy, and kept me wondering what was going to be revealed next.

Also, Alice is Native American. I cannot say thank you enough to Robison Wells, for giving me diversity in books! I also really liked how Wells was able to juxtapose the plight of the Native Americans to the arrival of aliens. I thought that was pretty brilliant.

After reading Dark Energy, I'm going to have to pick up some more books by Robison Wells, because I really enjoyed his storytelling.