If We Survive - eBook

Andrew Klavan is an award-winning writer, screenwriter, and media commentator. An internationally bestselling novelist and two-time Edgar Award-winner, Klavan is also a contributing editor to City Journal, the magazine of the Manhattan Institute, and the host of a popular podcast on DailyWire.com, The Andrew Klavan Show. His essays and op-eds on politics, religion, movies, and literature have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, and elsewhere.

Two-time Edgar Award–winner Klavan (True Crime) works the YA category with a gripping story narrated by Will Peterson, a teen on a youth mission trip. Will has a jaded view of the group, until building a wall for an orphanage turns into a rush for survival in a fictional Central American country crumbling into civil war. Extensive early character description slows the story’s takeoff; characters efficiently develop in action by conquering fears and bonding while being chased by rebel leader Mendoza. With help from a discharged U.S. Marine, the group navigates everything from snakes to firing squads to escape the country. The best part is the narrator, a sort of more hopeful and kindhearted Holden Caulfield, who finds himself in binds that lead him to make tough choices in the heat of the moment: “And I—Will Peterson—sixteen years old—from the quiet little town of Spencer’s Grove, California... I had just killed a man.” Klavan turns up the heat for YA fiction, and this book will be a hot Christmas gift this season. Ages 12–up. (Nov.) 2012 Reed Business Information

'Fast-paced with multiple threats, genuine tension and lots of machine guns.” -- Kirkus Reviews

'Klavan turns up the heat for YA fiction...' -- Publishers Weekly

'This book will appeal to anyone who is looking for a fast-paced adventure story in which teens must do some fast thinking to survive.” -- Elizabeth Kahn, Patrick F. Taylor Science & Technology Academy, Jefferson, LA School Library Journal