Kaethe's Reviews > When the Sky Fell on Splendor

6 January 2023

The joy of reading YA is that stories about young adults, written for young adults, often veer off in unexpected directions. This is a story about five teens and a dog living in yet another small town hollowed out by catastrophe and no future. Two have just graduated, but this summer will be spent with time carved out from between their jobs at Walmart and the YMCA shooting video of themselves ghost hunting. And then one night something amazing falls from the sky...

You can shoot your own trailer from that. There's danger and excitement and mystery in the best Scooby-Doo tradition, although these kids can't afford a van. There is ever increasing creepiness and un-put-downable suspense. And then there's more.

The beginning, the grim reality of their lives, drags on the reader as much as on Franny. But Henry knows how to raise the stakes. So worth it.

Library copy