Book Review: Scan by Sarah Fine

Premise: Tate's father is an inventor of weapons and tech gadgets. When Tate takes one of his father's strange devices to school, a deadly battle for the scanner begins. Both sides have nefarious intentions, both are prepared to kill. One side is human. The other side is aliens... who look like humans.

Title: Scan
Authors: Sarah E. Fine and Walter Jury
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Science Fiction
Series or Stand Alone: Book 1 of a new series
Content appropriate for: Grades 9-12
Format: Digital ARC provided by Penguin Young Readers via NetGalley

Three adjectives that describe this book: fast-paced, gritty, intense

This is a seriously action-packed YA alien thriller. Scan focuses on a device that reveals who among us is human and who is alien. The story is complicated by a romance between the protagonist (a human) and his hot girlfriend (an alien). Both characters hold their own with explosives, traps, and fight scenes.

Scan is populated by a great many chase scenes, gun fights, and explosions, alongside awkward teen romance, no-one-understands-me angst, and overly convenient MacGyver skills. Trapped in Walmart with a team of murderous aliens after you? No worries - we teenagers can make some explosives in just 5 minutes. And they will work perfectly.

You might be wondering - Who are these aliens? How did the human families find out about them and keep their blood "pure?" Why do the aliens look just like humans? Even though I have finished the book, I'm still wondering all of these things, too. In short, the action was plenty actiony, but the world was very very flat.

This action-packed book will make great summer reading for the high school set (lots of cursing and making out), but the plot holes and thin world development left me unsatisfied.