Dangerous by Shannon Hale


Dangerous
Written by Shannon Hale
Science Fiction, Fantasy
Published March 1st 2014
416 Pages
Thank you to Bloomsbury Australia
Maisie Danger Brown just wanted to get away from home for a bit, see something new. She never intended to fall in love. And she never imagined stumbling into a frightening plot that kills her friends and just might kill her, too. A plot that is already changing life on Earth as we know it. There's no going back. She is the only thing standing between danger and annihilation.

From NY Times bestselling author Shannon Hale comes a novel that asks, How far would you go to save the ones you love? And how far would you go to save everyone else?

Maisie had always dreamt of becoming an astronaut, and with two scientifically minded parents to support her, it may just be a possibility. But living within their tiny house, Maisie has never attended school and had been home schooled her entire life. But her disadvantage comes from her missing limb. Only having one arm has never stopped Maisie before, but the world sees her disability differently. So when a brand of cereal is giving away the opportunity to attend the prestigious Howell Astronaut Boot Camp, Maisie is desperate to win the three week chance of a lifetime. 

Leaving her parents and best friend Luther behind, Maisie still can't believe she's been chosen to attend the Howell Aeronautics Laboratories, an opportunity she's dreamed of since she was only five years of age. The camp is a mixture of competition winners and wealthy offspring, some teens are there to absorb as much of the experience as possible, while others couldn't care less. Immediately given the name 'One Arm', in addition to attending classes each day, Maisie is joined by three other teens, Mi-sun, Jacques and Ruth. Each group of four teens are called a Fireteam, expected to complete timed and graded missions. But when Maisie's team excel in leaps and bounds, Doctor Howell offers the group a short ride on the Beanstalk, a gateway to space. But the group have an extra student along for the ride, Wilder, the wealthy boy who's father bought his ticket to the camp.

But the five teens have no idea how much their lives are about to change, extra strength, impenetrable armor, weaponry, the ability to create and a brilliant scientific mind. Astronaut camp is about to become a life and death situation and the fate of the world may just rely on a group of superhero teens.

My Thoughts


I loved the premise of Dangerous, Maisie's character has one of the most memorable names in young adult today, who else could use the line that Danger is their middle name? But Dangerous reads as a middle grade novel, the concepts, dialogue and simplistic characters are prefect for early teen readers, but much too young for the mature young adult audience. It begun beautifully, Maisie was a brilliant teen with so much to offer readers, but sadly the lure of a potential romance was all too much, and the young genius lost her way. 

But the story begun to slide for me with the introduction of the Tokens, small pieces of alien technology in which no one had any idea what it was truly capable of. The teens morph into what could be seen as an Xmen band of superheroes. They begin training for a mission that no one seems to know anything about, only that the urgency is paramount. With cursing bleeped out, the world bleep actually replaces the colourful language, this is a great book for fans of Middle Grade. It's a clean action adventure novel that early teens will really enjoy.

1 comment

  1. So excited to see you had posted a review for this one. I agree that it was strong at the start than the end. I liked the whole space boot camp right up to getting the tokens. Then it slowly fell away. I still enjoyed it - I don't read a lot of MG and thought this one was a great addition to the scene. Great review, Kelly! :)

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