Control Room

December 4, 2020

Gr 7 Up-A short time after Maggie's motorcycle-riding dad is struck by a drunk driver and goes into a terminal coma, her mom meets Mark, an attorney representing the family, and starts dating him. Through Mark, Mom becomes acquainted with Helioras, a spiritual self-improvement cult presided over by Terrance, a charismatic Australian. Soon, high school junior Maggie is uprooted and moved into the Helioras community with Mark and Mom. Life inside is tightly controlled, with an emphasis on discipline and submission to Terrance. As punishment for contacting a local reporter to raise alarm about the cult, Maggie is sent to the "Growth Room" for solitary confinement in total darkness and silence. Mom is forced to tear out a clump of her own hair because her rows of tomatoes in the "World Soul Garden" are crooked. Maggie eventually comes to believe that Terrance is going to institute a mass suicide and that she must take desperate measures to warn the community. The story is narrated by Maggie and the tone is oppressively dark. A potentially hopeful ending is rushed and implausible. The novel is published in verse form, but line breaks and stanza groupings seem arbitrary. Almost no line is longer than three words and white space abounds. Character development is lacking. It reads as a short story stretched over more than 200 pages. VERDICT Given the subject matter and the teen narrator, this could be an additional hi-lo selection in larger libraries with high demand for fiction aimed at reluctant readers.-Bob Hassett, Luther Jackson M.S., Falls Church, VA

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