By: Neal Shusterman Publisher: Puffin Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Puffin Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 176 Publication Date: August 03, 2006 Reading Level: Young Adult
Product Description: Fifteen-year-old Parker Baer is bored with his entire perfect life. But when Parker finds Tara, a strange but beautiful girl sleeping in his bed, his life turns upside down. Exotic-looking, with long, glimmering spirals of golden hair that seem almost alive and eyes that are always hidden behind sunglasses, Tara lives by herself in a house full of statues. Parker watches, fascinated, as the charismatic Tara picks students at the high school to befriend and wraps them around her little finger. As her "friends" start developing strange quirks, like drinking gallons of milk at a time and eating dirt, only Parker realizes what Tara is up to. But she’s endowed him with certain cravings of his own. . . . Can he stop her destructive game in time, or is he doomed to be under her spell forever?
dark fusion series "Dread Locks" is the first title in Shusterman's Dark Fusion series, and what a start it was! I couldn't put it down.
Tara is a fascinating character, while Parker accurately represents a typical American teen. You'll figure out where this is going about halfway through, but the end will still catch you offguard.
I can't wait to read the rest of the series.
Courtesy of Teens Read Too In Neal Shusterman's new DARK FUSION series, the author takes myths, legends, and fairy tales, mixes them up with modern day tales of teen angst and horror, and comes up with an entertaining read. In DREAD LOCKS, we get a whole stew pot full of retold stories--Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Medusa, King Midas. They're all there, and the finished product is a quick, fun, and sometimes depressing read.
Parker Baer is the type of fifteen-year-old I both love and hate. He's always been given everything he's ever wanted, due to the fact that his parents are wealthy. He has an obnoxious older brother, Garrett, and an irritable little sister, Katrina. For his birthday, his brother bought him a motocross bike, and his parents gave him a statue. Yes, the teenage Parker is now memorialized in bronze.
Then Parker meets his new next-door neighbor, Tara Herpecheveux, in the most surprising way--she's sleeping in his bed. But Tara's strangeness, and undeniable attractiveness, is a hodge-podge of attributes--she's exotically beautiful, has the strangest blond dread locks, always wears mirrored sunglasses, and has an aversion to the belief of personal property.
As Parker gets more and more entangled in the strangeness that is Tara, he begins to notice the ever-increasing weird behavior of the students in his school. Odd cravings, incessantly strange behavior, and a general weirdness pervade the halls of the private school for the rich. Once Parker finally accepts the truth of what's happening, it's too late.
The ending, although slightly predictable in some ways, was a surprise overall. It left me feeling sad, but then again, most fairy tales have one or more tear-inducing scenes in them. DREAD LOCKS is an interesting retelling of some notable myths, and if you're into horror stories, this one should definitely do the trick!
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