What We Saw At Night
Sixteen-year-olds Allie, Rob, and Juliet are the tres compadres. They live in Iron Mountain, Minnesota, where there is a medical center researching the disease that they all have: xeroderma pigmentosum, a severe allergy to the sun. Night is their day. Juliet, the most fearless of the trio, gets them into parkour, an extreme sport that involves scaling structures and leaping off tall buildings. But while out doing stunt dives, Allie thinks she sees a woman being murdered, and a whole new dangerous world is opened, one that keeps Allie—and readers—guessing until . . . well, even after the book’s close, since this turns out to be the beginning of a trilogy. This is problematic because the convoluted plot, which moves in fits and starts, seems to demand some sort of conclusion, at least one that could lead into the next title. Instead, this is more of a cliff-hanger. What does work here is Allie’s narrator voice, honest and real, and the fascinating looks at both parkour and a disease so unconventional it turns the lives of patients and their families upside down.       HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Mitchard’s well-known name should be enough to draw a crowd for this one. Grades 8-12. --Ilene Cooper