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| THE TWELVE-FINGERED BOY | JOHN HORNOR JACOBS | CAROLRHODA LAB | FEBRUARY 2013 |
Fifteen-year-old fast-talking Shreve doesn’t mind juvie. He’s good at dealing contraband candy, and three meals a day is more than his drunk mother provided. In juvie, the rules never change and everyone is the same. In juvie, Shreve has life figured out. So when he’s assigned a strangely silent and vulnerable new cellmate, Jack, Shreve takes the younger boy under his wing. But all Shreve’s plans and schemes unravel when he discovers Jack is different. For one thing, Jack has six fingers per hand. For another thing, he just might have superpowers.
I am so glad Bree Ogden randomly mailed me a copy of this book. It's probably not something that would have caught my eye, but it is so different from any other book I've ever read. After reading the back cover copy, a million questions came to mind: How is this juvie setting going to work? Why is having twelve fingers all that strange? What kind of superpowers? The book went in a completely different direction than I had imagined and for once I'm not put off by the idea of a sequel.
The characters in this book are exactly how I assume most fifteen-year-old boys act and speak and think. I'm not entirely sure if that's accurate, having never been a fifteen-year-old boy myself, but the characters are genuine and real and unique. They aren't cookie cutter stereotypes. Every character has his own past and issues and his own way of coping with them. I appreciate the realistic characters, with all their strengths and weaknesses.
Jack has six fingers per hand and this abnormality is what assumedly gives him superpowers. However, he's not the only one in the book who can do unusual things and the story spins out of control when others discover their own abilities. A very creepy man named Mr. Quincrux wants to get his hands on Jack and take him away from juvie. After a mind-reading event scarily reminiscent of rape, Jack and Shreve decide to make a run for it: they break out of prison and use newly found superpowers to survive on their own.
The end of the book is an obvious lead-in to a sequel, but I wasn't upset. Enough happens in The Twelve-Fingered Boy that I was okay with not figuring everything out by the last page. There was a ton of character and plot development that set up a great foundation for what's going to be an amazing series. This book is truly original with a great voice, one you should pick up if you're in the mood for something different.
The characters in this book are exactly how I assume most fifteen-year-old boys act and speak and think. I'm not entirely sure if that's accurate, having never been a fifteen-year-old boy myself, but the characters are genuine and real and unique. They aren't cookie cutter stereotypes. Every character has his own past and issues and his own way of coping with them. I appreciate the realistic characters, with all their strengths and weaknesses.
Jack has six fingers per hand and this abnormality is what assumedly gives him superpowers. However, he's not the only one in the book who can do unusual things and the story spins out of control when others discover their own abilities. A very creepy man named Mr. Quincrux wants to get his hands on Jack and take him away from juvie. After a mind-reading event scarily reminiscent of rape, Jack and Shreve decide to make a run for it: they break out of prison and use newly found superpowers to survive on their own.
The end of the book is an obvious lead-in to a sequel, but I wasn't upset. Enough happens in The Twelve-Fingered Boy that I was okay with not figuring everything out by the last page. There was a ton of character and plot development that set up a great foundation for what's going to be an amazing series. This book is truly original with a great voice, one you should pick up if you're in the mood for something different.
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