About the Author

ROBIN WASSERMAN is the critically-acclaimed author of the Seven Deadly Sins series, Hacking Harvard, the Skinned trilogy, and The Book of Blood and Shadow. She lives in Brooklyn.

Reviews

Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, July 29, 2013:
"Wasserman (The Book of Blood and Shadow) delivers an exceptional horror novel that will lead to inevitable (and deserved) Stephen King comparisons... The novel works just as well as mainstream horror as YA, and the ending is both effective and brutal."

Starred Review, Booklist, August 1, 2013:
"The Waking Dark is a horror story worthy of Stephen King... It's a violent, edgy, well-written, and foreboding novel, so realistic that readers can only hope it's simply fiction." Starred Review, School Library Journal, July 2013:
"Great dialogue and intriguing subplots add to the action-packed story, which will have readers frantically flipping pages. Wasserman sustains a truly spooky mood throughout, and the suspense doesn't let up until the final pages." Starred Review, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, October 2013:
"Masterful pacing and brilliant scene-setting work to make sure readers can't leave Oleander until the final page."

Gr 9 Up-This contemporary thriller opens on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon in a small town in Kansas, when five people with no connection to one another inexplicably commit murders and then kill, or attempt to kill, themselves. This becomes known as "the killing day," and no one has an explanation for it. The dark story is told from the perspectives of five teenagers, each of whom suffers in a different way due to the crimes, but it's nearly a year before their linked lives truly converge. After a devastating tornado, the entire town is quarantined and the adults are descending into violent madness. The five teens seem to be the only ones who realize something terrible is happening; they struggle both to stay alive and unravel what's really going on and who is responsible. While the number of protagonists can be confusing at times, their alternating stories are all compelling. Great dialogue and intriguing subplots add to the action-packed story, which will have readers frantically flipping pages. Wasserman sustains a truly spooky mood throughout, and the suspense doesn't let up until the final pages.-Sunnie Lovelace, Wallingford Public Library, CT (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.