MMGM Review & Giveaway: EYE OF THE STORM by Kate Messner

I promised that the next time I had an MMGM it would include a giveaway, so here we go. It’s another one of my Scholastic Warehouse Sale finds–EYE OF THE STORM by Kate Messner!

In the not-too-distant future, huge tornadoes and monster storms are a part of everyday life. Sent to spend the summer in the heart of storm country with her father in the special StormSafe community his company has developed, Jaden Meggs is excited to reconnect with her dad after he spent years researching storm technology in Russia. She’ll also be attending the exclusive summer science camp, Eye On Tomorrow, that her dad founded. There, Jaden meets Alex, a boy whose passion for science matches hers, and together they discover a horrible truth about her dad’s research that is putting countless lives at risk. As a massive tornado approaches, threatening to destroy everything in its path, Jaden is torn between loyalty to her dad and revealing his secret. Can she find the courage to confront her dad and save everyone from the biggest storm yet?

I’m going to mix things up a bit with this review. Instead of highlighting the five things I loved most, I’m going to list the five things I found most intriguing in this book. It’s sort of the same, but not quite–more that these things made me think.

1. The premise – I’m intrigued by the idea of super-storms becoming so prevalent they change life on Earth. It’s like natural disasters meet dystopia. I live in St. Louis, and we get a lot of tornado sirens here. When I was a kid, we used to ignore them, but there have been actual tornadoes rip through towns nearby in recent years, so we don’t ignore them anymore. I’m not saying I believe this could actually happen anymore than I believe Panem could actually happen, but still, it intrigues me.

2. The super-smart kids – These aren’t your typical 12 to 14-year-olds. These are kids who can read, understand and add to their parents’ research. I admit that at times I was thinking, This is middle grade? But then I’d see a tweet about a 10-year-old who just graduated from high school and think, Why not? There are exceptional kids out there, and the kids in this book are examples of that. The main character, Jaden, may be a genius, but she still deals with the very young conflict of wanting her daddy to be her daddy.

3. The twist-ers – Oh yes, I went there. And I really do mean it both ways, but I’m not going to spoil anything for you, so you’ll have to read it for yourself and see what happens.

4. The futuristic elements – It’s always interesting to read something set in the future and see how the author envisions the future. Some of it is fantastic and some of it is a a bit sad, like the lack of museums, which in this case is affected by the specific world’s super-storms. I was fascinated by Ms. Messner’s futuristic world.

5. The sci-fi element – This sort of goes with the first point, but in addition to the super-storm premise, there’s also a question of whether weather manipulation is possible. To me, this seems like science fiction. But who knows? I’m sure there are many things we’re able to do today that people believed were science fiction fifty years ago.

So, on to the giveaway. North America only, please. I’m giving away a paperback copy of EYE OF THE STORM, and this is my first attempt at a Rafflecopter. Let’s hope it works!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note: This giveaway has ended.