11 Birthdays

11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass  267 pp.

I read this as a possibility for use with my kids book club. It didn't make the cut. It's an okay story but I had to keep reminding myself it was written for kids when I found problems in the story. Essentially it's about two kids, Amanda & Leo, who were born on the same day and who celebrate every birthday together until their 11th because of something that happened on their 10th birthday. Their 11th birthday keeps repeating (like the movie "Groundhog Day") while they try to figure out how to stop it. Of course, there is a mysterious old woman and an old family feud causing all this. As I said, it's an okay book, but just okay.

Niceville

Niceville by Carsten Stroud  385 pp.

The town of Niceville belies its name. It is anything but. The story opens with the disappearance of a young boy. On a store security camera he is there one second and simply gone the next. This is followed up by a bank robbery and the subsequent sniper killing of several police officers and the occupants of a news helicopter. Soon there are more surrealistic disappearances and deaths. Added to that are the creepy old man who videotaped his daughters in the bath, a dentist who over-gasses his female patients and photographs them in compromising positions, a bitter, divorced hacker who is stirring up trouble for all sorts of people, crooked & murderous cops, a mysterious family feud going back generations, a stolen top secret weapon, and a mysterious "bottomless" pit the Native Americans consider to be a source of evil. You never know what is coming next. But it's not all doom and gloom. Pockets of black humor lighten the mood even if it's a drunken father “teaching his toddler how to pull-start a gas-powered weed whacker” with the warning: “It wasn’t going to end well.” It's a great story.