Review: This Story Definitely Passes
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 23, 2013
"Pass/Fail" by David Wellington is a fascinating, if bizarre, concept for a YA fiction; or any other age group, too. A High School Senior, Jake McCartney, is awakened by the sound of a car crashing into his house in the middle of the night. Jumping out of bed, he runs to the front door, where his father is watching the car start to burn. Jake, without thinking, runs to the car and manages to get the door open, burning himself in the process. Inside is a young girl about his age, who has already passed out and is very close to dying from either smoke inhalation or burning up. Jake frees her from her seatbelt, lifts her from the car, and carries her to safety. After an ambulance trip to the hospital, she is well on her way to a full recovery, as is Jake.But when Jake returns home, he finds a blue envelope on his bedroom floor. Inside is a card that simply says, "Pass". Thus begins perhaps the most unusual test ever undertaken by a human of any age. The twists and turns in this story are absolutely not anything you might expect. Virtually every page has another revelation on it, further compounding an already complex tale. Wellington has an incredibly convoluted mind, with secret bits of imagination hiding behind every convolution."Pass/Fail" is one enticing book you have just got to read soon. Every time you think you've got something figured out, the next page will prove you wrong. It features long-standing friendship, budding romance, mystery, intrigue, collusion, secret passages galore, conspiracy, murder, futuristic technology, cloning vats, and a whole heaping helping of power-mad insanity. This is an excellent story! Read it now, before the sequel comes out, so you'll be ready for that sequel as soon as it's published.