Shelter by Harlan Coben Review


My rating: 2/5

Mickey has recently lost his father in a car crash and his mother is in rehab. So, being 15, he has to live with his uncle Myron. His new girlfriend suddenly disappears and he tries to find her by finding clues and solving mysteries with his new friends.

Alright, first of all, I’m not saying that it’s a total waste of time, but I think you can skip it don’t worry about missing anything. The only character that is talked about enough is (of course) Mickey himself. Ashley (the missing girlfriend) should have also been talked about enough so that finding her would be important to the reader. Halfway through the book, I was like “am I supposed to give a damn if they find her??”

That being told, another thing that killed the book was cliché: the main character has lost his parents, everyone flirts with him, there’s an emo fat girl with a whole lot of piercings and tattoos that he pities, the basketball team has beef with him, a skinny (apparently) loser guy who follows him around until Mickey says “ahhh fine whatever you can stick around I guess, but you are excluded from the main hot stuff”, blah blah blah.

One other annoying thing, Mr. Coben: why do your teenage characters have to be so dumb?? I mean, seriously, Ema doesn’t know what her tattoo is?! Which teenage girl willingly pushes the school hottie into the arms of his handsome boyfriend? And talking about questions, why a girl on the run who is hiding from everyone has to check her emails?? And what happened to Mickey’s basketball friend’s dad who was expecting a call to go after the bold mysterious guy? Couldn’t he at least help with Antione or the night club?

Put the characters aside, now we get to the plot. WWII? Seriously? And a mysterious white van? A bold guy? Face tattoos? I can go on until tomorrow man. I mean, Mr. Coben, you can write insanely good stuff, you’ve shown it before. Why did you have to just put every random thing from a cheesy action movie that you can think of into a YA? I didn’t buy any of the “action” parts. All. So. Freaking. Predictable. And do you know who hated predictable? YA. Yes, your audience. I am so disappointed in Coben’s young adult books I’m not gonna bother to read any of it again. I’m just gonna stick to the adult ones. 


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