Review: Found - Margaret Peterson Haddix

Synopsis: When Jonah and his best friend, Chip, start receiving threatening notes in the mail, they are plunged headfirst into a mystery. With the help of Jonah's sister, Katherine, they discover that the notes may be connected to the shady circumstances surrounding Jonah's and Chip's adoptions. When they begin to investigate, they find a vast conspiracy that reaches from the far past to the distant future - one that will take them hurtling through time. They don't know who to trust, or which shadowy faction to believe. Can Jonah and Chip discover the secrets of their pasts before the conspiracy catches up to them?

Review: One word: Strange. There is no other way to describe this series of books. However, that is not a criticism. Though I have just finished Book One, I am unwilling to say that I dislike the series, but "like" is also not the word that I would use. Will it end up on my shelf? Yes - it's one I would like to read over again, but saying that I like it just isn't the word that I would use. It is rather like the Gideon Trilogy, or The Red Necklace and The Silver Blade. I would definitely read them over again and I intend to buy them, but to say that one likes them . . . I find them interesting, I find them intriguing and engaging reads, and the characters are brilliant. And yet, like is not the word.

But I've gone on about that enough. On to the story itself. Well, it is certainly engaging and it definitely keeps the Reader turning the pages. I am anxious to read Book Two - Sent - because now they are getting into the really good events. When I first picked up the book, I wasn't sure if I would be able to look past the names of the main characters. Jonah I can put up with, but Chip is just downright annoying. And the first two chapters didn't promise very thrilling characteristics in them. Katherine was extremely annoying and Chip threatened to have a crush on her - ugh. Even after finishing Found, Katherine got on my nerves, and though she is supposed to be younger than Jonah, I kept thinking that she was older. But Jonah is an okay "hero;" I may end up ranking him as a well-liked character. Chip isn't horrid, either, though I discovered that I often tuned him out. I got tired of his negativeness.

Still, the events of the book itself will more than likely have the Reader ignoring the annoying attributes of all the characters. Found begins weird and it gets progressively weirder. But a good kind of weird! If it didn't have the storyline that it does, I wouldn't read it, because it is a modern-based book with adolescent boys and I cannot stand those; they turn into coming-of-age stories - how dull! No one who has lived through puberty and has had to deal with three brothers when they went through adolescence wants to read about it. But Margaret Peterson Haddix offers up a wonderfully weird, intriguing, and Gideon Trilogy-like story that saps all the 21st-century bore right out of it!

Can't wait for Sent to come in!

Overall Rating: JJJ

Others in The Missing Series:
1)Found
2)Sent
3)Sabotaged
4)Torn

5)Caught