Follow Molly's Book Nook on WordPress.com

Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne // A fantastic survival story

Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne // A fantastic survival story
Monument 14 (Monument 14, #1) by Emmy Laybourne
Genres: Dystopian (YA)
Pages: 294
Goodreads

Your mother hollers that you're going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don't stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don't thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not-you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner.Only, if it's the last time you'll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you'd stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran.Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong.
In Emmy Laybourne's action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world-as they know it-apart.


“…yesterday’s over. I never think about yesterday. If I did, I’d be dead meat.”


bookrev (4)

This is a survival story – but a unique kind. It’s not a high-action, explosions (well, there is one), on the edge of your seat type of survival story. It’s realistic (to an extent) on what people would need to do to survive and how people would come to question strangers. In that regard, it’s kind of a mixture of The 5th Wave (without the aliens) and Dawn of the Dead (without the zombies). 14 children and teenagers have to survive inside a department store and they encounter some challenges. The kids have to deal with issues such as extreme emotional distress, leadership, dangerous outsiders, drug use and rape. Monument 14 is a story that addresses the basic instincts of survival.

And Laybourne did a very entertaining job at doing that.

Oh, and let’s be honest with ourselves, anytime we think about where we want to go during the apocalypse, do we not think of going to Costco/the mall/a department store? This book just proves that it would be one of the top places to end up!

bookrev

For the most part, I liked the characters. I definitely had my favorites and my least favorites.

The main protagonist is Dean, who is one of the “unpopular” kids that has a crush on the “popular” girl. Kind of your run-of-the-mill character, but I enjoyed it being told from his perspective because he was one of the most neutral characters.

His younger brother Alex is a tech whiz and sometimes I forgot he was 13 because of how mature he was.

There were many children in this story (ranging from 5-years-old and up) and they were all a hoot. There were twins that talked about their mom all the time, a boy who thought everyone was a sinner, one boy who didn’t speak a lot of English, but my favorite was Max. He clearly came from a broken home because he always shared stories about his family, which kind of broke your heart but he was so blunt about it – it was fantastic. And then he says this:

“…yesterday’s over. I never think about yesterday. If I did, I’d be dead meat.”

So simple, yet thought-provoking in its own way. It kind of reminds me of Gone With the Wind.

The older teenagers were all individuals, you had the jock, the jocks best friend, the hippy and the “popular” girl Dean is in love with – who I hated because View Spoiler »

There isn’t a lot of character background given aside from Dean and Alex (and that is very little), but you get an idea of everyone’s personality and you will definitely have your own favorites.

bookrev (1)

The story is written from a high schooler’s perspective, which worked perfectly, but did not create the most intellectual dialogue/inner monologues. However, it is right for the story – it created a more authentic tone for a story about a bunch of kids trapped in a department store. Sometimes authors try to age their characters by giving them unrealistic dialogue, I’m lookin’ at you John Green. I’m not saying teenagers are unintelligent, but sometimes authors forget that they are teenagers and think some very hormone-driven, angsty thoughts. Laybourne kept true to that teenage mentality while still writing a fantastic story on survival.

Which brings me to the pacing, like I said before, this is a story about survival. So, if you are expecting high-action, fast-paced drama, this may not be the book for you. That’s not to say it’s boring, plenty of things happen to these kids, but at a more steady, realistic pace. They have to figure out how to survive off of what is provided to them in this department store, how to establish a leadership and delegate duties. That is something that I love, so I instantly got consumed in the plot. But it may not be for everyone.

bookrev (3)

Overall, this is a great read, especially for any dystopian/post-apocalyptic fan. There are moments that are heartbreaking and others that will make you laugh or go “aww” (plus side to having 5-year-olds in a story). While this book is set at a more steady pace, it’s the first in a trilogy and the ending definitely set up the chance for a fantastic sequel!

My one complaint is the odd airborne chemical compound. It took center stage to everything else happening at times, and (because they are kids trapped in a store) there wasn’t much detail regarding it. Hopefully in future books it will be something that is addressed further (Kind of like The Maze Runner).

Also, there are some more “mature” scenes, not overly graphic, but they are there.

*I’m using the term realistic very loosely in this review.

Rating Report
Plot
Characters
Writing
World Building
Overall: 4.5 / 5

9 Comments

  • Reply R Hunt 01/27/2016 at 10:23 am

    I don’t read too much YA except for YA fantasy/dystopian, then I’m in! I actually read this a year or so ago and enjoyed it. Very creative idea and done satisfactorily. (I’m a book friend of Greg’s, so I found your blog there).

    • Reply Greg Hill 01/27/2016 at 5:33 pm

      Hi Rita! (waves)

    • Reply Molly 01/28/2016 at 5:56 am

      Hi, Rita! (I’m assuming that’s your name based on Greg’s comment 🙂 ) Glad you found your way over to my blog!

      It was a great idea! I mean, I always say Costco would be a good place to end up, but I haven’t seen a book about being trapped in a store yet. It was a refreshing YA dystopian, too, in that it wasn’t about a 16-year-old girl that had to save her people haha

  • Reply AdrianaTonicher 01/27/2016 at 1:58 pm

    im super happy u liked the books 🙂 i like your review too 😛 i read the books this last year and i loved them *.* i love this type of books, apocalyptic survival type of books ar emy favorite 😛 i still have to read the rain and the storm im keeping those for when i really need to 😛 i also have the dead series which i also cant wait to read. i have read the life as we knew it series and its pretty good too,u should chekc it out,ahh and this fallen world series also super good, and dark inside and rage whitin is amazng oh god!!! :3 yeahh i agree with you, its not full of actions and stuff but they are trying to survive and organize themselves inside the store and making rules and etc i really liked that, i also really liked that the book had a map, i hope yours had too it help me visualize things a lot better 😛 yeah max parts are soo touching, like hes talking about stuff that i guess he doesnt understand very well but for us reading it oh god :S ahh i dont like that little kid named chloe i think she was soo annoying xD astrid sometimes pissed me off and brad too, (i think its his name im not sure) i hate when i finished reading a book and then i dont remember their names :S

    • Reply Molly 01/28/2016 at 6:05 am

      Thank you (for liking my review)! 🙂 I love post-apocalyptic/dystopian as well! Completely obsessed with it lol Especially this kind, where it’s taking place in the current US so I can relate (rather than something like The Hunger Games). I’ll definitely take note of all the series you mentioned 🙂 Thanks for the suggestions!

      I really enjoyed that aspect of the book – getting themselves organized, making rules, leadership. It has to happen in a case like that, and I love reading about people that have to do it (or watch, like The Walking Dead). Mine did have the map! It definitely helped visualize the store.

      Also, yes! That’s why I love Max. It’s heartbreaking, his home was so broken, but he has such a good attitude for being such a young kid. I’m sure he doesn’t understand most of what was going on with his family, but then he says “I don’t think about yesterday” and it makes you think maybe he does a little, and he just keeps his chin up! Loved that kid.

      Chloe was annoying! So was the 13-year-old girl that wore the short-shorts. I forgot her name ALREADY, so don’t even worry about not remembering names lol

      Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

  • Reply Greg Hill 01/27/2016 at 5:33 pm

    I love apocalyptic/ survival stories! This one sounds good, and I admit to looking at this one numerous times at the bookstore, but I never picked it up. I’ll have to rectify that. Glad to be reminded of this one!

    I like the idea of the multiple POV’s and getting to see how the different personalities interact in the crisis. Looks fun.

    • Reply Molly 01/28/2016 at 6:07 am

      Ah, let me clarify, it’s actually not in multiple POV, there is just a lot of characters. It’s told from Dean’s POV. Sorry if that got confusing in the review! My bad! But it was still a really good story! They’re all in such close quarters that you kind of see what all of them are up to most of the time. I hope you are able to check it out sometime. It’s a trilogy (all of them are already out) so I’m hoping the story just gets even better!

  • Reply Tracy 01/28/2016 at 9:01 am

    This sounds so interesting!! I’ve had my eye on this series for literally years but I’ve never actually given it a chance. Maybe I should just go for it because I love basically everything you’ve described! And I would absolutely go to a mall if the apocalypse happened! 😛 Great review!

    Tracy @ Cornerfolds

    • Reply Molly 01/28/2016 at 4:27 pm

      I actually got it for pretty cheap from Book Outlet knowing nothing about it and I just kept putting it off simply because I hadn’t seen a lot of people talking about it. But it was surprisingly really good! Definitely give it a chance 🙂

    Let's Chat! (Comments are manually approved)

    Follow Molly's Book Nook on WordPress.com Skip to content