A few good pieces of news and reviews for David Patneaude's EPITAPH ROAD.
First is that it's been nominated for YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults list! Check out the entire list here. Such great company there, and we're so proud of David.
And then we're sorry we missed it back in June, but EPITAPH was a June ALAN Pick! With a lovely review as well:
Epitaph Road by David Patenaude
Egmont, 2010, 266 pp., $16.99
Thriller/Post Apocalyptic/Utopia/Relationships
ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-60684-055-9
The year is 2097 and Kellen is a fourteen-year-old boy living in a world with few males. Nearly thirty years previously, a super virus wiped out 97 percent of the males living on Earth. Now, the world is run primarily by women, and Earth is an idyllic place to live—free of the aggression that brought Earth to the edge of complete oblivion. Kellen is resigned to be one of the lone outcasts (a male’s potential is now considered limited and untrustworthy) until he overhears his mother, a powerful leader in this new world order, speaking of a new outbreak of the deadly virus that had wiped out the previous male population. This time, Kellen learns, that the virus is headed toward a community of “loner men” that includes Kellen’s estranged father. With the help of female friends, Kellen escapes his mother’s dominion and races to warn his dad of the incoming danger; in the process, he learns of the real reason for the spreading of this dreaded male disease.
This book is a real-page turner, filled with just the right mixture of action sequences and thought-provoking conversations. It is most suitable for middle and high school readers as the author concentrates on the morality of the tale, leaving most graphic scenes to the reader’s imagination. Teen readers will delight in this highly accessible adventure tale, and teachers and parents alike will relish the notion that the author is an engaging and serious novelist with a strong and definitive moral compass. Readers who like Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games and Michael Grant’s Gone will enjoy another entry in this best-selling genre.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kaplan, Orlando, FL
Congrats, Dave!