Friday, March 6, 2009

Shelter Me by Alex McCauley


I'm really not sure how much of this book to give away in the summary so....
*unsurreptitiously stealz from Goodreads*

Maggie Leigh just wants to be a normal teenager, but when German bombs tear apart London during World War II, her ultra-religious mother sees the destruction as divine punishment. She sends Maggie to a remote boarding school in coastal Wales, supposedly to keep her safe, but also to keep her in line. The school is creepy, the headmistress is a lunatic, and the students range from spoiled rich girls to speechless trauma victims. But when a tragic accident happens on the beach, Maggie and three friends are forced to flee the school, plunging into the nightmarish world of Europe during wartime. Now every decision Maggie makes is fraught with danger, and living to see another day depends on how quickly she can think and act...and how far she's willing to go.

Thank you Goodreads.

The plot in this book was... incredible. When Maggie and her friend met the Nazi pilot who coincidentally crash lands on the beach next to the convent I was like "Oh... okay. That could happen." When Maggie returns to the beach only to find that her friend has killed the Nazi pilot, I gave a skeptic eyebrow-raise. When Maggie and her friend proceed to inspect the remnants of the crashed plane and find a box with a baby in it I stopped expecting something plausible from this book and just enjoyed laughing at the increasingly unbelievable plot twists. Oh no it doesn't stop there. From bizarrely warped nun conspiracies to out of the blue lesbian lovers to random army deserters stabbing themselves on trains, this book has it all.

3.5 out of 7 strangled teddy bears for Shelter Me.

Tracking down a good faerie book,

Medeia

2 comments:

Ms. Yingling said...

I didn't think there needed to be another story about children being evacuated during WWII, but this sounds like it has some good twists and excitement. I'll have to take a look!

Ren @ All By Myshelf said...

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