Undertow

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Lyric Walker’s life is forever changed when she witnesses the arrival of 30,000 Alpha, a five-nation race of ocean-dwelling warriors, on her beach in Coney Island. The world’s initial wonder and awe over the Alpha quickly turns ugly and paranoid and violent, and Lyric’s small town transforms into a military zone with humans on one side and Alpha on the other. When Lyric is recruited to help the crown prince, a boy named Fathom, assimilate, she begins to fall for him. But their love is a dangerous one, and there are forces on both sides working to keep them apart. Only, what if the Alpha are not actually the enemy? What if they are in fact humanity’s only hope of survival? Because the real enemy is coming. And it’s more terrifying than anything the world has ever seen.

 

Review: 3 stars

This is another one of my finds from the used book sale that I went to. I absolutely loved the cover and read a few sentences of the blurb before I was sold on this one. That cover is absolutely gorgeous! I am glad that I found this book, Undertow was unlike anything thay I had ever read before, and in the genre of YA fantasy, that is quite the challenge. Michael Buckley has a fierce imagination that brought human/fish mutants to life with descriptions that made it possible to visualize creatures I could never have dreamed up.

Michael Buckley also shows a realistic reaction of how the U.S. government might react if a subspecies of humans ever invaded our land. The U.S. is very heavy in military and our police force, yet also full of people with different beliefs. The police state Coney Island became, full of protesters that caused all kinds of havoc, is easy to visualize actually occurring in this country.

Even though this was a fantasy, the events felt possible and the reactions of the characters felt real. The novel moved fast with non-stop action and a bunch of twists that I didn’t see coming. The climax and the plot kept me interested, and I would gladly continue on with this series.