No Safety in Numbers

by Dayna Lorentz

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

No Safety in Numbers is a tense story, building the action day by day as life in the mall heats up. At first, life in the mall seems kind of fun. There’s food, shopping, and friends. But then people start getting antsy. And then they realize they have reason to fear for their lives. Supplies run low. Gangs are formed. Anarchy erupts.

Through this all, the reader is thinking What if this happened to me? As the tagline says, this book happens in “a mall that looks just like yours,” and the idea is pretty frightening. It also makes one consider how he or she would act in similar scenario (any better than the crazed people in the book?). It makes one aware that small actions change lives—if only some of these people had waited a day to buy their shoes, or had chosen to watch a movie instead of going shopping, everything would be different.

However, it is the plot and the questions that it raises that must carry the book. The characters—all four of them—are a bit unlikeable. Shay is stringing along two different boys just because she wants their physical comfort. Ryan is a football jock who is okay with beating others up. Marco is a somewhat bitter busboy. Lexi is insecure about her body. Of course they have redeeming qualities, but none are people I would personally want to acquire as friends. This is part of the story, how teens from different cliques are forced to come together for their mutual benefit, but as the reader is safely outside the mall, he or she has no similar reason to become attached to the protagonists.

There is also the small matter that most of the characters (major and completely unnamed) want out NOW. Understandable? Yes. They believe if they leave they will not be infected. Obviously none of these people have the compassion or logic to realize that by leaving they could carry the disease to others—to people they love. And, again, the reader who is outside the mall has the perspective to be completely judgmental about this behavior. No Safety in Numbers overall paints a pretty bleak picture of humanity. Only the sequels will tell if adversity can ultimately bring the best out of people, and I will definitely be reading them to find out.

This review was also posted at Pages Unbound Book Reviews.