Stung

Stung

     This amazing book by Bethany Wiggins is called "Stung". The copyright date on this book is April, 2013. This book is for young adults and above and at parts can be quite nerve-wracking. This book is a science fiction about a disease and what follows it. the general plot of the book is that a 17 year old girl, Fiona Tarsis woke up from a coma one day to a broken society and beasts of humans roaming the streets. She must find a way to survive in this utopia of mankind and learn to live in this new world. The overall theme of this book is that even in a broken world, you can still find peace.

    The story is told in a first-person point of view and has some flashbacks to the past. In this you can hear her thoughts as she survives and see what she sees. This is especially creepy when she sees the beasts and/or is being chased. The plot is the honey bees have become endangered, so scientists made a super bee that would kill off predators and restore the bee population. It worked well. If fact so well that the bees started to attack humans. If you were stung, you would get the Bee Flu, which has a 100% mortality rate, meaning you have no chance of survival once you get it. Because of the flu, scientists made a shot to protect people from dieing. All the richest people got them first and became immune to the flu. But there was one problem. About a month after taking the shot, the patients became... violent. They would have sudden mood swings and increased strength. By the second month, they turned into man-killing beasts that had the same idea as the bees. Destroy all predators. Fiona Tarsis, the main character got one of the first shots. But a month later she was but into a clinically induced coma. Int he beginning, she wakes up from that coma and instead of becoming a beast, she stays normal. But she still has to survive. The intended audience for this book is mature young adults, but is not too violent or suggestive to be for adults and above. The genre of "Stung" is science fiction and it fits in well because it talks about a super virus and a shot that could stop it but had some nasty side effects, including turning one into a human-like beast.The author kept me interested because she made the story suspenseful and added a cliffhanger after every paragraph, not letting put the book down.

    The book affected me because I couldn't go to sleep after reading it because it was so suspenseful, I just had to keep reading. In fact, two weeks ago on a Friday night, I started reading a page fourteen, and by the time I went to bed, which was around three in the morning, I had finished the book. I think it changed how I feel about getting shots and also how I feel about trusting scientists by making us shots. This book sort of reminded me of The Hunger Games because of the survival factor and that every wound could be fatal.

    I really like the book, the chapters and story flow like a river and the character development was really good. In fact, the character development was so good that you start to worry in cheses, or shootouts and when one of then gets hurt, you kind of feel like your friend got shot. I recommend this book for mature teenagers who can handle thrillers because this book is one heck of a thriller that will keep your eyes glued to the pages for hours on end. 

Ben Dworin

11/6/2013

Rating: **** 4/5