Fade to Blue

Sean Beaudoin
Little, Brown and Company (2009)
ISBN 9780316014175
Reviewed by Maggie Desmond-O'Brien (age 14)  for Reader Views (11/09)


Sophie Blue and Kenny Fade seem to have nothing in common: she’s the goth, he’s the school’s dreamboat basketball star. But now, one year after Sophie’s father mysteriously disappeared on her seventeenth birthday, nothing seems to make sense. First, a freaky popsicle truck begins to circle Sophie’s house and follow her to school. And then Kenny starts to feel like his life…isn’t really his life. Now they must investigate a very shady bio-lab and some dubious school experiments, all before a psychotic nurse and the Popsicle Man find out what they’re up to…

I can honestly say that, perhaps for the first time ever, I was stumped by a novel. I loved it, I hated it; I was utterly confused by it. One part “The Matrix,” one part “Donnie Darko” and the other just plain weird, it’s a hilarious thrill-ride that shouldn’t be missed by any teen fan of the offbeat and satirical. But it’s also overcomplicated, too quick-moving and too witty for its own good.

From the constant plot twists, raunchy, snarky humor and comic-book sci-fi pace, everything about this book could be construed as either good or bad or both, depending on what you like to read -- which, of course, makes it a reviewer’s worst nightmare. I literally felt listless and depressed while I was reading it, knowing that, at some point, I was going to have to face the dreaded blank page and dredge up the words to describe this sardonic little gem.

So now I’ve filled that page with four paragraphs of saying that I was confused. In “Fade to Blue” by Sean Beaudoin the writing was good, the story clever if a little unoriginal—so what was my problem? I don’t really know. Something about it just didn’t add up, and while a little mystery is the spice of life, this book had way too much. Part of me wants to read a sequel, if only for a little bit of closure, but the rest of me thinks that I’ll only end up more nonplussed.

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