Review: Exciting Concept...but I have some issues.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 2, 2013
Three teen boys discover a building mysteriously converted into a puzzle maze...  Great concept, but this story is gonna give your suspension of disbelief a workout.  I loved the setup; summer, backyard camping, coming of age, parents too strict due to a neighborhood abduction.  Well done.  The dialog and interaction between the boys is spot on and at times hilarious.  It's very Steve King-ish - Swimming at the quarry, deceiving the parents, sneaking out at night, discovering nefarious activities of older "bad" kids.  These pages were a delight to read.  The discovery of the "hotel" begins the plot in earnest and the tension mounts.  This, however, is where I started having issues.How they discovered the "Hotel" or the artifice used that allowed them to, was brilliant.  The puzzles, once they began, took too long, or maybe there were too many of them, and they didn't hold my interest as much as I think the author hoped they would.  Most of the challenges were common and lacked any real ingenuity, but mostly they didn't hold my attention nor did they advance the story very much.  This was the least exciting part of the book, there was a lot of Jack solving all the puzzles, and Ben coming to the realization that something sinister was at work here; I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.I can't help thinking that perhaps too much cleverness got in the way of a great story.  As the story winds to the climax we find out why the series of puzzles and what the prize is.  I'm not going to spoil the ending because I think it's a good read but like the title says, I have some issues.  Suffice it to say I wasn't thrilled with the plot turn that was the puzzles end, and the change in characterization.  The seemingly sudden change in our protagonist's character didn't seem to fit with the rest of the book.  I wanted hero, I got anti-hero.  3 Stars, but I still liked it!