More questions than answers.
At the end of the book, that’s what I’m left with. Who are SYLO? What is The Ruby? What are those strange flying ships? Why is Pemberwick Island under quarantine? Who are all the people suddenly on the island? What do Tucker’s parents know that they aren’t telling him? What happened on the mainland? Is there anyone Tucker can trust? Every single time you think you’ve figured something out, another mystery appears, confounding, frustrating, and driving you on in the vain hope that you can have at least one answer before the end. But it is not to be. Both the reader and Tucker reach page 407 of D.J. MacHale’s heart-pounding, thrill-ride SYLO confused, frustrated, and without a shred of truth to cling to.
SYLO begins a new trilogy on a quiet island community off the coast of Maine filled with summer vacationers and a small population of locals who inhabit the island all year round. It’s a quiet life where everyone knows everyone else and people leave their doors unlocked at night. Freshman Tucker Pierce and his parents relocated here about 5 years ago after his dad lost his job as a civil engineer and Tucker has found the slow pace of small-town life suits him just fine. But Tucker’s idyllic life is suddenly, horrifically altered when a series of seemingly unrelated deaths rock the island. In addition to these tragedies, Tucker and his best friend, Quinn, on a midnight ride around the island to blow off some steam, are witnesses as a shadowy plane with no apparent engines is shot down just off the coast of the island. No one has any explanation for what they saw and Tucker has an uneasy feeling the recent deaths and this strange ship might be somehow connected.
Within days they arrive: parachuting from the sky, arrive on boats from the sea, setting up a blockade of the entire island. Calling themselves SYLO and saying they are a secret part of the US Navy, they tell the residents that Pemberwick Island has been hit by a deadly virus and they are under quarantine both for their own, and for the mainland’s, protection. Within hours, the entire island is completely cut off from the rest of the world and no one feels safe. Tucker and few of his friends believe there is more to the story than SYLO’s commander, Captain Granger, is telling people. Everyone who died or has exhibited strange behavior did so after taking a brilliantly red rock-salt like crystal dubbed “the Ruby”, but no one in authority seems to be looking into what the Ruby is. There are also no records in the hospital database of cases of this deadly virus, although people are being rounded up every day. And worst of all, Tucker has seen SYLO agents shoot people who have tried to flee the island. When he experiences the ultimate betrayal, Tucker has no choice but to risk everything to make it to the mainland to expose SYLO and try to get help for the people trapped on Pemberwick Island.
- Posted by Cori