Girl on the Run

August 1, 2020
The opening scenes set the pace for this stomach-clencher of a chase. Katelyn's mother, Melissa, doesn't want anyone to know her business, and they move often. Why is not clear. Katelyn, ignorant of her mother's motives, creates an online dating profile for Melissa, blowing their cover. Melissa's words as she hectically starts packing bags are ominous: "They found us." Katelyn knows things are serious when Melissa steals their elderly neighbor's vehicle to use as a getaway car. Narrated in the first person by Katelyn, the story keeps readers as much in the dark as she is. To keep her safe, Melissa leaves Katelyn in a motel room while she goes off to deal with things, leaving Katelyn to untangle a somewhat overblown tale of thwarted love and a cold-case murder. Her first clue appears along with a brutal bounty hunter who busts into her room. Katelyn escapes and, in the process, rescues computer whiz Malcolm, whom the bounty hunter has kidnapped for his tech skills. Malcolm, who is Black in a default White cast, is able to tell Katelyn why Melissa is being sought. Together, the duo enters a cat-and-mouse game, trying to locate Melissa while staying one step ahead of the bounty hunter. The chapters are short, featuring terse chapter titles--"Flee," "Evade," "Hostage"--and each ends with a cliffhanger, making this page-turner appealing and accessible for reluctant readers. Fast and intense, this is a galloping thriller with something extra for romantics. (Thriller. 12-16)

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October 30, 2020

GR 7 UP-White 16-year-old Katelyn Reed always thought her mom was overprotective, maybe even a little paranoid. But now that they've been settled in the same town for nearly a year and Katelyn is finally allowed to get a part-time job and her own computer, she figures her mom might be ready to loosen up in other areas of her life. Little does Katelyn know that the simple act of uploading her mother's photo to an online dating site will turn her life upside down, revealing alarming truths about their secret past. True to the title, the girl is quite literally on the run for the rest of the book, the plot setting a relentless pace through Katelyn's previously-unknown past. Johnson's action sequences are frantic and violent, rendering her characters' injuries with almost reverent precision. Meanwhile, the portrayal of the central mother-daughter relationship of the novel is thin, offered mainly in convenient flashbacks when Katelyn calls on her mother's lessons to find an escape route or charm a janitor out of his keys. Malcolm, the Black hacker Katelyn teams up with, is similarly more of a plot device than a character, several times using "computer stuff" to get the pair out of a jam. VERDICT A fast-paced thriller that is driven more by plot than character. Recommended only for very large collections.-Dana West, Nathan Hale H.S., Seattle

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