NEWBIES

Author: James A. Moore ISBN: 0843954744 11/2004 TEEN HORROR Publisher: SMOOCH

Brittany Corin is an enigma. The new girl at Dunhaven Academy, she is street-smart and solitary. Questions and rumors about her presence at the private and exclusive school abound, but Brittany reveals nothing about her past. Until students start to disappear and a mysterious note blames the newbie. To clear her name, Brittany begins to dig for answers—instead she finds trouble. Trouble she can’t handle alone. To rescue the missing students, to prevent terrible destruction—to save her own life—she will have to rely on her classmates. She will lead them against the unspeakable horror that threatens everything they hold dear. It will test all her strength and courage, all her preconceived notions. For Brittany is about to learn that to defeat true evil, conquering your inner demons can be the hardest struggle of all.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

A bit different from my normal reading fare, NEWBIES is a teen horror story with a touch of paranormal aspects to it. Mr. Moore does a fine job grabbing the reader’s interest from the first chapter. So many hints are dropped that the reader wants to know exactly what happened in Brittany’s past and what is behind the disappearance of her fellow students at the school. Towards the middle of the story, I became confused, with too many hints and little known facts surrounding Brittany’s past. The entire time, I kept thinking this book must be a sequel to another story, for I definitely am missing something here.

After doing some online research, I discovered that it is the sequel to Moore’s POSSESSIONS. The problem with this is that NEWBIES is marketed as a teen novel, while POSSESSIONS as an adult one. However would the average, uninformed reader know to make the connection? I do feel like NEWBIES would have been less confusing if one had read POSSESSIONS first. Not doing that, I was confused at points and totally lost a time or two. Little tidbits were dropped into the story and I wasn’t sure what the importance of it was, nor how it related to the current story. At other times, a subplot was just dropped, leaving the reader hanging.

NEWBIES began as a gripping and intense mystery, that unraveled into a mess of confusing events. Too bad, because the story had lots of promise.

Kendra Patterson