City News

This is the second book of the 13th Reality series, The Hunt for Dark Infinity by James Dashner.
Tick and his friends get back safely, but are soon faced with another problem: An evil enemy has created Dark Infinity, an invention that could destroy the universe. But to get to it, the group has to leave everything behind, and follow more clues-but it’s not M.G. who wrote them.

Meanwhile, M.G. tries to find the location of the kids, but also has to control a mental disease caused by Dark Infinity. He sends Sato to find a cure, but bad things happen, and Sato catches the disease himself.
Tick and his friends meet a lot of people on their way to solve the riddles, like Sally, a worker for M.G, and go to a lot of places, like a city filled with glowing monkeys. But strange things happen along the way, like twisted trees appearing in a forest, and a giant glass structure in the middle of a desert. Unfortunately, the enemy captures all of them, and Tick discovers he has a special power, but it might be too dangerous for anyone to control.

I liked the book, and the plot twist that explains what happened to the twisted trees and the giant glass tube. The part about the city wasn’t that interesting, and there wasn’t really an explanation about how the glowing monkeys got there. But the descriptions of the places were nicely detailed, leaving the finer facts open to interpretation.

The characters were the same, and I liked how they didn’t get any big changes that happened between the first and second book. Tick was the same, but he seemed to get more cranky and hot-headed. Sofia was still a jerk, and I think Paul was pretty much only used for comic relief. But I also didn’t like how M.G. sent Sato to risk his life with little to no guilt, and when Sato got infected, M.G. was just sad, not guilty that he made Sato get sick.

Some parts of the story were interesting to read, like when the enemy attacked Tick and his friends at a place they visited. That had a lot of action and excitement, although it was kind of ruined when all the enemies went after Tick instead of Sofia and Paul. I also liked the drama when Tick, Sofia, and Paul went inside the glass tube, and they almost died. I wondered why when a train with the kids inside crashed, Paul broke his arm. It’s almost like the writer didn’t care about Paul, and was just using him for more complications. Tick and Sofia didn’t help much either; they just continued without really helping Paul or getting medical attention.

Taking everything into consideration, I think this is an okay book, but slightly worse than the first book. There were a lot of plot holes and character flaws, and also some action-filled and exciting parts too. I would recommend the book to children and tweens who like riddles, mystery, and action.

Check out The Hunt for Dark Infinity from the Newport Beach Public Library.