Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne // A fantastic survival story

Monument 14 (Monument 14, #1) by Emmy Laybourne
Genres: Dystopian (YA)
Pages: 294
Goodreads

Your mother hollers that you're going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don't stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don't thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not-you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner.Only, if it's the last time you'll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you'd stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran.Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong.
In Emmy Laybourne's action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world-as they know it-apart.

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“…yesterday’s over. I never think about yesterday. If I did, I’d be dead meat.”

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This is a survival story – but a unique kind. It’s not a high-action, explosions (well, there is one), on the edge of your seat type of survival story. It’s realistic (to an extent) on what people would need to do to survive and how people would come to question strangers. In that regard, it’s kind of a mixture of The 5th Wave (without the aliens) and Dawn of the Dead (without the zombies). 14 children and teenagers have to survive inside a department store and they encounter some challenges. The kids have to deal with issues such as extreme emotional distress, leadership, dangerous outsiders, drug use and rape. Monument 14 is a story that addresses the basic instincts of survival.

And Laybourne did a very entertaining job at doing that.

Oh, and let’s be honest with ourselves, anytime we think about where we want to go during the apocalypse, do we not think of going to Costco/the mall/a department store? This book just proves that it would be one of the top places to end up!

For the most part, I liked the characters. I definitely had my favorites and my least favorites.

The main protagonist is Dean, who is one of the “unpopular” kids that has a crush on the “popular” girl. Kind of your run-of-the-mill character, but I enjoyed it being told from his perspective because he was one of the most neutral characters.

His younger brother Alex is a tech whiz and sometimes I forgot he was 13 because of how mature he was.

There were many children in this story (ranging from 5-years-old and up) and they were all a hoot. There were twins that talked about their mom all the time, a boy who thought everyone was a sinner, one boy who didn’t speak a lot of English, but my favorite was Max. He clearly came from a broken home because he always shared stories about his family, which kind of broke your heart but he was so blunt about it – it was fantastic. And then he says this:

“…yesterday’s over. I never think about yesterday. If I did, I’d be dead meat.”

So simple, yet thought-provoking in its own way. It kind of reminds me of Gone With the Wind.

The older teenagers were all individuals, you had the jock, the jocks best friend, the hippy and the “popular” girl Dean is in love with – who I hated because View Spoiler »she goes MIA for majority of the time in the department store – until the end when she asks Dean for a favor. Ugh. (Obviously there is more to that story but I tried to keep my spoiler as non-spoiler-y as possible 😉 ) « Hide Spoiler

There isn’t a lot of character background given aside from Dean and Alex (and that is very little), but you get an idea of everyone’s personality and you will definitely have your own favorites.

The story is written from a high schooler’s perspective, which worked perfectly, but did not create the most intellectual dialogue/inner monologues. However, it is right for the story – it created a more authentic tone for a story about a bunch of kids trapped in a department store. Sometimes authors try to age their characters by giving them unrealistic dialogue, I’m lookin’ at you John Green. I’m not saying teenagers are unintelligent, but sometimes authors forget that they are teenagers and think some very hormone-driven, angsty thoughts. Laybourne kept true to that teenage mentality while still writing a fantastic story on survival.

Which brings me to the pacing, like I said before, this is a story about survival. So, if you are expecting high-action, fast-paced drama, this may not be the book for you. That’s not to say it’s boring, plenty of things happen to these kids, but at a more steady, realistic pace. They have to figure out how to survive off of what is provided to them in this department store, how to establish a leadership and delegate duties. That is something that I love, so I instantly got consumed in the plot. But it may not be for everyone.

Overall, this is a great read, especially for any dystopian/post-apocalyptic fan. There are moments that are heartbreaking and others that will make you laugh or go “aww” (plus side to having 5-year-olds in a story). While this book is set at a more steady pace, it’s the first in a trilogy and the ending definitely set up the chance for a fantastic sequel!

My one complaint is the odd airborne chemical compound. It took center stage to everything else happening at times, and (because they are kids trapped in a store) there wasn’t much detail regarding it. Hopefully in future books it will be something that is addressed further (Kind of like The Maze Runner).

Also, there are some more “mature” scenes, not overly graphic, but they are there.

*I’m using the term realistic very loosely in this review.

Rating Report
Plot
Characters
Writing
World Building
Overall:	4.5 / 5