Nemesis

December 19, 2016
Reichs (coauthor of the Virals series) incorporates enough life-threatening, apocalyptic elements into this fast-moving tale for half a dozen ordinary thrillers: an extinction-event-size asteroid, comets crashing to Earth, mysterious tsunamis and earthquakes, secret medical experiments, libertarian survivalists, and more. Sixteen-year-old Min Wilder, meanwhile, has problems of another sort: on her birthday, a stranger, who may be related to the aforementioned apocalyptic events, murdered her, only for her to wake up, apparently unharmed, in a forest near the Idaho trailer park where she lives. This has now happened five times: five deaths and five resurrections. With worldwide destruction imminent, a military unit has sealed off Min’s town, and she learns that her classmate Noah (who trades narration duties with Min) is experiencing the same kind of recurring violence. Min is a tough hero, and her close friend Tack is compulsively funny, though other characters hew more to stereotypes. Reichs pulls everything together at the book’s end, and a plot twist few will see coming should leave readers eagerly awaiting the second book in this duology. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House.

Starred review from December 1, 2016
Reichs follows up his Virals series (co-written with his mother, Kathy Reichs) with a new series about imminent human extinction.Min is not your average 16-year-old. Living in a trailer park in an isolated town high in the mountains of Idaho, she's learned to keep pretty much to herself. She has a mother who loves her and a best friend, Tack, who'd like to be more, but she knows they can't understand what she's going through. Every two years on her birthday, she's murdered. And every two years she comes back, completely unharmed. She's tried to escape the inevitable but knows it's only a matter of time before the man in black returns for her. Now things are getting worse, with an asteroid headed toward Earth. Will this be it, the real end of her life? Just when she's found that classmate Noah is having the same strange experiences she's tried to keep hidden? Reichs varies his narrative structure, opening with Min's present-day account, interspersed with italicized flashbacks, and then switching to Noah, whose account is punctuated by transcripts with the doctor he shares with Min, before their stories converge in alternating chapters. It's a pacing strategy that keeps the pages flipping madly. Min, Tack, and Noah are all evidently white. Hooked readers will be tapping their fingers waiting for the sequel. (Thriller. 12-16)

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February 1, 2017

Gr 7 Up-Reichs's new novel offers readers a glimpse into the final moments of a preapocalyptic world, as seen through the eyes of two radically different teens. Min and Noah haven't been friends since they were kids, and they don't have much in common: she's from the wrong side of the trailer park; he's from the right side of the mansion. What's the recently discovered common thread that links them? Since they were eight years old, they've both been murdered on their even-numbered birthdays by an unidentified assassin-and then have immediately come back to life. Min is taking a proactive approach to finding her murderer, enlisting the help of her best friend and breaking into offices to uncover encrypted files. Noah, stuck under the controlling thumb of his psychiatrist and desperate to be normal, is slower to acknowledge his bizarre, brutal reality. Yet with the threat of cataclysmic death and destruction on the rise, Noah must decide which path to follow-blazing a trail with Min or falling in line with his powerful and popular friends. The two characters have an abundance of differing traits (rich/poor, male/female, insecure/brave), so their alternating narratives offer a little something for every reader to relate to. Min is a self-assured female protagonist, and Noah is a refreshingly complex young man, a stoic type who is willing to admit to himself when Min is stronger and more fearless than he is (which is often).

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2017
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* It's no way to celebrate a birthday: every even-numbered year, 16-year-old Min is murdered by an impassive, black-suited man. And then she lives on. Something weird is going on in Min's isolated Idaho town, and she traces it back to first grade, when everyone in her class was inoculatedbut for what? Things are equally catastrophic in the world at large, where everyone is waiting to see if an asteroid, Anvil, is going to hit Earth. The Anvil misses, but the world is battered by earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires. Min begins to realize that perhaps her strange reality and the earth's convulsions may be linked. She also learns that she's not the only one enduring her odd existence. There are many overworked adjectives for action books: page-turner, fast-paced, intense. For this book, multiply all of them. Reichs truly keeps readers guessing throughout, with twists on nearly every page. Alternating chapters between Min and fellow student Noah give readers a chance to look at the curious incidents from two points of view, heightening the tension. While some of the characters are more stereotypical than substantial, Min's witty best friend, Tack, brightens the pages. The book's ending hints at a sequel, and, though there is more to be discovered, this would have been a fine thriller all on its own.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)