Full Tilt

June 23, 2003
In a book that moves like one of the roller coasters it describes, a teenage boy must face a series of tests that represent his deepest fears in order to save his brother. Narrator Blake, a thoughtful 16-year-old student about to leave home for an early college career, follows his daredevil brother, Quinn, into a haunted amusement park. Once inside, he learns the park's sinister secret: he must finish seven rides by sunrise, or become trapped in the park forever. Ultimately, Blake is forced to confront the memory of a horrible bus accident from his early childhood, and the resulting fears and regrets that have stayed with him. Blake and Quinn are skillfully cast opposites: the former an orderly-minded, intellectual student who avoids risk, the latter an earring-studded adrenaline junkie who would rather flirt with death than be bored. Amusement parks, where chaos and order work hand in hand, make an ideal setting for coming-of-age stories (Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, to which this book bears more than slight resemblance, being the best example). Despite the escalating surrealism of the rides, Shusterman keeps the narrative in Blake's matter-of-fact voice, making the tale oddly believable. But in the colorful blur of the park's tests and challenges, there is little time for deep character development, and Blake and Quinn evolve little beyond caricature. Ages 10-up.

June 1, 2003
Gr 7 Up-The myriad bits in 16-year-old Blake's brain become the stuff of an alternate universe, a nightmare amusement park in which he must experience seven wild rides before dawn in order to escape. The teen has always been the careful child in his family; at age seven, he was the only survivor of a school-bus crash. Since then, he has taken on the responsibility of saving his brother Quinn, who constantly needs to be rescued from his own impulsive behavior. Blake would certainly never accept the invitation to a midnight ride offered by the icily attractive Cassandra, a mysterious figure he encounters at Six Flags. However, when his brother steals the invitation and disappears, Blake has to follow. As he makes his way from one terrifying ride to another, Cassandra appears and disappears, challenging him, leading him on, and, finally, desperately attempting to keep him where he is, in the world she has created. His brother appears and disappears as well, and in one ride they discover that they need to work together. But at the end, Blake is on his own to face his deepest fears and survivor guilt. As the pace picks up in his surreal fantasy, readers are sucked into the nightmare, tumbling full tilt from one bizarre occurrence to another. Set in the vibrant, vivid atmosphere of theme parks and computer games, this is an unusual quest adventure. Teens will recognize both Quinn's sensation seeking and Blake's withdrawal, and celebrate the balanced conclusion.-Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC

Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2003
Gr. 6-10. Sixteen-year-old Blake, a straight-arrow, Ivy-league, college-bound kid, is at a carnival with Quinn, his thrill-seeking brother, and two friends when a beautiful girl invites Blake to another carnival in a remote part of town that only admits invited guests. Later that evening, Quinn is found at home in a comatose state with Blake's invitation by his side. Did he go to the other carnival in Blake's place? When Blake and his friends go in search of the mysterious carnival to find out what happened to Quinn, they discover that the price of admission to this bizarre, phantom place is one's soul. To save Quinn, Blake must survive seven different carnival rides before dawn, each one a terrifying reflection of one of Blake's deepest fears. In the final ride, Blake confronts the memory of a horrible childhood accident that he has buried deep in his psyche--a school bus wreck in which he was the only survivor. With a nod to Ray Bradbury's classic "Something Wicked This Way Comes," Shusterman has created a surreal, scary fantasy, packed with suspenseful psychological drama. Readers will savor the page-turning thrills in this wonderfully eerie story. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2003
An older, alluring, and slightly mysterious girl invites Blake to an amusement park that's only open from midnight to dawn. The rules: he must finish seven rides, all before sunrise, or the park absorbs him. Blake comes to realize that each rides takes him to his deepest fears. Shusterman conveys fear through this sweaty-palmed, heart-stopping narrative. Like a roller coaster, the novel delivers a short-lived but thrilling ride.

(Copyright 2003 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)