The Spindlers
By Lauren Oliver, read by Simon Vance
Published 2012 by HarperCollins
One morning, Liza wakes up and her brother is not her brother anymore. He's not the same brother he was the day before, anyway, and Liza realizes that she might be the only person who knows what's happened. The Spindlers have come and changed him and it's up to her to save him.
I really wanted to like this one because I quite enjoyed Liesl & Po. Unfortunately, I just didn't love it. I listened to the audio of this back in the fall and honestly, I'm having a bit of difficulty recalling many of the details. And that's one of the reasons why I didn't love this book - it didn't grab me the way Liesl & Po did. I never felt emotionally connected to Liza and her quest to save her brother. On a surface level, I knew I should be invested in it, but I never really was. It seemed like Oliver was trying for a more sinister atmosphere in this book and I'm not sure it was really successful - I didn't feel particularly afraid or bothered by the Spindlers. There's no doubt in my mind that Oliver can write a beautiful and affecting book, but this just wasn't a particularly fine example of that. I hope that she writes more middle grade in the future but I hope it reads more like Liesl & Po than this title. A bit of a let-down.
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