Tuesday, January 27, 2015

REVIEW: Kalahari by Jessica Khoury


Kalahari (Corpus, #3)Deep in the Kalahari Desert, a Corpus lab protects a dangerous secret…

But what happens when that secret takes on a life of its own?


When an educational safari goes wrong, five teens find themselves stranded in the Kalahari Desert without a guide. It’s up to Sarah, the daughter of zoologists, to keep them alive and lead them to safety, calling on survival know-how from years of growing up in remote and exotic locales. Battling dehydration, starvation and the pangs of first love, she does her best to hold it together, even as their circumstances grow increasingly desperate.

But soon a terrifying encounter makes Sarah question everything she’s ever known about the natural world. A silver lion, as though made of mercury, makes a vicious, unprovoked attack on the group. After a narrow escape, they uncover the chilling truth behind the lion’s silver sheen: a highly contagious and deadly virus that threatens to ravage the entire area—and eliminate life as they know it.


In this breathtaking new novel by the acclaimed author of Origin and Vitro, Sarah and the others must not only outrun the virus, but its creators, who will stop at nothing to wipe every trace of it.


I received an ecopy of this book via First to Read in exchange for an honest review.

MY THOUGHTS
I've read and loved all of Jessica Khoury's other books, but this one has to be my favorite so far. I went into this book without knowing anything about it, besides the setting and the fact that it has something to do with experiments (the latter was just a guess, it is a Corpus book after all). I love going through books knowing little to nothing about it. I ended up really enjoying this book and constantly turning the pages to know more!

This book is another companion book, part of the Corpus series, though the books can be read out of order and by themselves yet still make sense. Kalahari follow Sarah who lives in the Kalahari desert with her dad. In order to make more money, they agree to let five teenagers join them for an educational safari. When her dad goes after some poachers and doesn't return, she fears the worst (especially since her mom died recently after a similar event). She goes after to find her dad, with the five teenagers in tow. She has to find her dad, while keeping her tag-a-longs alive, all the while strangers keep coming after her, along with the discovery of odd, silver animals and a deadly disease.

First of all, this book is incredibly action-packed. Sarah's dad disappears very quickly in the book and from then on it's event after event after event. This book is never slow-paced and it absolutely works with the book! The entire idea behind this book is also really unique and creative, yet makes scientific sense. Sure, silver animals don't sound very plausible, but it is explained so brilliantly that it makes perfect sense. (By the way, please tell me I'm not the only one who was reminded of that one Scooby-Doo episode where all the safari animals turned a radioactive green? Anyone?)

The characters were also very great. I know I say this a lot in my reviews, but Sarah is a very strong main character. She is very resourceful, thanks to practically living off the land, and saves the other's lives many times over. The other characters do grow as the book progresses. A few of the teenagers are kind of annoying in the beginning. They blame Sarah for what is going on and they complain about what's happening, but they begin to lose these feelings when they realize how serious the situation is.

There is a very tiny romance in this book. It was one I was expecting. Once this guy walked out of the plane, my first though was "I bet this is the love interest." As I said though, the romance was very small and didn't distract from the plot at all. I actually thought it was really nice.

IN CONCLUSION
Overall, this book was very fact-paced and action-packed! The plot behind this whole book is very fascinating and I thought it was done very well. I do recommend this book, along with any of Jessica Khoury's other books! If you are a fan of fast-based books with a mystery and science, you will very likely enjoy this book.


I hereby give this book
4 Wheels
Meaning: It was amazing!

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