Author: Rachel Elizabeth Cole
Publisher: Tangled Oak Press
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often reward aplenty!
Today is the «animal» ate my «school-related item» day today! This novel was really quite entertaining in the end, and I say that because there were a couple of points during my reading that I started to wonder if I would like it or rate it positively. In the end, though, I found myself intrigued and amused, and I was wanting to read it even as I wondered what kind of a disaster would arise from the behavior of these two kids. Also, I really liked the kids, not only Drew, the older brother, and Libby, his much younger sister, but also other characters, such as his best friend, his female acquaintance Tabitha, who probably merits a whole book to herself, and even the two bad girls with whom he has a mini-war at one point.
In the end I decided to rate it worthy because I think it will entertain the audience for which it was written, and because there's actually a good moral story here - if nothing else, that actions have consequences, and if you take an action, then you need to face up to the possible consequences - good or bad.
The trigger action here is a two-parter: the first with Drew damaging his bicycle jumping roots in the woods after he's been warned not to go there alone, and the second his sister Libby's bringing home an abandoned pet rabbit. Normally Drew would have won this tussle and the rabbit would have gone, but Libby saw what he did in the woods, so she blackmails him into keeping the rabbit under threat of revealing what he did to his bike! Libby is a cool kid, and really smart. His parents are dead set against pets, so he has to hide this bunny in his room, and the rabbit has its own ideas about how to take this treatment. The rabbit is as well characterized as any of the humans.
Over the course of a week or so, each day unfolds like one of those money-stealing coin games in the arcade, where you roll a coin down and hope that it falls just so, such that it will push off a whole bunch of other coins that are laid out looking precariously bountiful on the lip of the cascade. You never know what's going to drop, and more often than not, nothing does drop, but once in a while something crashes down - usually unexpectedly. This novel was just like that, as things slowly deteriorate and it becomes ever harder to hide the rabbit and keep Drew's father's attention directed away from his missing bike!
I recommend this one.
