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Summary
Summary
Thinking her son deserves some answers about what happened to his mysterious Uncle Patrick, Joshua's mother starts to write the history of Patrick's last summer. Reading it on the sly, Joshua realizes her story matches up exactly with his new computer game, AlienState 3.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-10-Josh, 13, and his mother, Joanna, are spending part of the summer at the village home of Josh's ailing grandmother. At first, the boy is sorry to leave London and his friends, but he soon becomes involved in a quest to learn more about his late uncle Patrick, who died when he was Josh's age. The family refuses to speak of Patrick, but Josh and Katherine, the 16-year-old next door, accidentally stumble upon a memoir that Joanna is writing. As the teens learn more about her childhood and those of her siblings, they begin to notice an unmistakable parallel between the tragic events of the past and a futuristic computer game that they are playing. They eventually discover that Patrick had a condition similar to autism and was committed to an institution by his father. Josh is able to help his mother and uncle come to terms with their brother's illness and be reunited with Patrick, who is in fact alive and living nearby. Rees does a marvelous job of injecting an atmosphere of mystery and uncertainty into the novel from the beginning. Dialogue, plot, and characters are notable for their authenticity and originality, yet the descriptive sentences are sometimes awkward and read more like detailed notes than coherent passages. The cover art, although eye-catching, is misleading as it shows a young Patrick confronting what appears to be an alien, and it may repel teens in search of realistic fiction. An original, intelligent novel from a fresh voice in YA literature.-Leah J. Sparks, Bowie Public Library, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
In a story with all the trappings of an X-Files episode (UFOs, alien abductions, crop circles), a British boy investigates his uncle's supposed death at age thirteen by reading his mother's notes for a book and playing a mysterious computer game. Readers who want to believe may be disappointed by the late veer into a problem novel about Asperger's Syndrome, an autistic spectrum disorder. From HORN BOOK Spring 2001, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Originally published in Great Britain as Truth or Dare, Rees folds three strands of plot together into one intriguing mystery about 13-year-old Joshuas long-departed Uncle Patrick. Even before they arrive at Grams house, where Gram is terminally ill and needing care, Mom is acting strange. Although Grams mutterings about Patrick arent worth bothering about, the strangeness of Patricks old room is worth Joshs study. While absorbed by these oddities, Joshs mother, Joanna, in an attempt to deal with her own guilt, creates a computer file describing the critical events of the long-ago summer when she was 11 and Patrick disappeared. After Gram is gone, neighbor Katherine, 15 and attractive, provides the outside prod to truly search for answers. Together, she and Josh discover a frightening correlation between that secret family story and the plot of a new AlienState video game: HomeWorld. The dexterity with which Rees weaves these threads together builds suspense. The characters are not well-developed, nor is there a strong moral sense at the core. At the heart of the mystery is Patricks autism, or Asbergers Syndrome. There was no such diagnosis at the time, and much pain and tragedy resulted. The brutality with which Patrick is treated doesnt diminish or excuse the violence of his reactions. The impact is softened and made bearable by having the worst take place off-stage or in the past. Adults may wish for an ending that delves deeper and questions the moral justice of events, but the intended readers will be grabbed by the trail of leads and will accept the mystery on its own terms. Detecting with a techie tilt. (Fiction. 10-14)
Booklist Review
Gr. 5^-7. Rees weaves together two stories that take place a generation apart. In one, a modern British teenager, Josh, who loves computer games, pries into skeletons in his family's closet. The second concerns Josh's mother's dysfunctional family at the dawn of the Space Age, especially two brothers: one fascinated by aliens; the other, Patrick, having a condition (actually a form of autism) not understood at the time. When tragedy shatters the neighborhood, strange Patrick is blamed and sent to an institution where he is said to have died. When Josh recognizes elements in his newest computer game that only Patrick could have created, the two stories come together. Readers expecting aliens will be disappointed, and the opening chapters are slow going. The convoluted mystery is filled with family drama, however, and the British perspective on the space race, Roswell, etc., is intriguing. Teens who liked Dennis Haseley's Getting Him (1994), a less complex novel with a similar setting and themes, may want to give this a go. Catherine Andronik
