by D. M. Sears

A Book Review by Jackie Houchin

WARNING: you may not want to begin The Untimely Journey of Veronica T. Boone, Part 1 Laurentide, by D.N. Sears, until you buy the next two books in the trilogy ($6.00 Kindle or $15 paperback each on Amazon). Parts 2 and 3 are not sequels, they are continuing pieces of the story and (in my opinion) should be all a part of one larger volume. That said, the first part is an action-packed story that is at once wonderfully confusing and terrifying (on a kid’s level). Kids 10-16 will do just fine.

I confess, in reading this book, I noticed too late that under the title is printed “Part 1.” It is a very unusual story, that, if I’d read the back cover copy, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But I didn’t, and I was surprised. Surprised when people started disappearing (okay, maybe only a little) and surprised when the corn flakes & Hershey candy bars disappeared too (huh?), especially when no one even remembered what they were!

I didn’t read the back cover copy until a gang of thieves robbing Molly’s school – (Molly is the protagonist, Veronica doesn’t appear until the last 10^th of the book, along with the time travel. Oh, I didn’t mention time travel?) – turned out to be a gang of…er…less than human beings. (Wait, what?)

Then I read the back copy. Ohhhhhhhhh….  Okay now I get it. The very weird happenings at Molly’s school and in her town of Laurentide made sense now. And it looks like Molly (with Veronica) will be able to fix it all. But not in this book.

Right after the closing line on the last page, in which nothing is solved and only a bit is explained, the author writes “Never fear, the journey continues (not concludes) in Part 2 – The Jeremy Bentham – available now.

I have to buy book two? And three?

NOTE: in Part one, a few current culture trends are alluded to by the bad guys, such as, “blanking” people (cancelling) and singling out specific race, like “African-Americans” as opposed to simply “Americans.”

FOUR stars

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