Age: 15
Title: Endangered: Mystery on the Daily News Beat
Author: Kate Jaimet
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Pub Date: 08/04/15
Galley: Yes
Top 25: No
Convince us to read the book: I felt like a strong point was the inner voice and witty, believable inner dialogue of the main character Hayley, which sounded believable and realistic. I also did really like the development of Hayley's character from someone who doesn't care about the turtle near the beginning to someone wanting to at least help save it near the end.
However, I felt like one weak point was predictability - the plot twist that the suspicious old Doctor Wallis (who was fired for shooting an endangered animal and who sent them looking for the turtle in the first place) was the one trying to ruthlessly capture the turtle didn't come as a surprise to me at all. I feel like another weak point of the story was character development of other characters at times. Although the character of Ernest is developed, he is still nothing more than a hippie stereotype and his complete obliviousness to the situations around him doesn't seem believable to me. To me, Ernest seemed "flat" and unrealistic, less like an actual, developing character and more like a hodgepodge of tree-hugger-esque stereotypes. The same character development problem seemed to also be a problem with Doctor Wallis, the character of some deranged old scientist ruthlessly trying to capture some rare species. To me, it seemed like the character of Doctor Wallis was taken from an old movie.
Memorable or Forgettable: I felt like it was somewhat forgettable, because the plot seemed somewhat predictable and seemed like a derivative of other works where some villain attempts to capture a rare species for their own nefarious purposes and some people are tasked with saving it. I also felt like some of the characters (see Dr. Wallis and Ernest above) seemed too generalized and unbelievable to seem like real people. Finally, I felt like the story jumped around too much at times, tried to cover too much ground, and occasionally seemed to reference multiple past or present subplots that only tangentially relate to the story.
Cover: This book was an unpublished copy, so my version had no cover.
Age Range: 14 through 15
Quality: 3Q - Readable
Popularity: 3P - Some teen appeal
tags: mystery / endangered species / ya lit
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