If We Survive

Gr 8 Up—This gripping novel will hold readers' attention from the opening pages until the end. Will Peterson is one of five members of a team that has traveled to a fictional country with an unstable government in Central America. Their job on this Christian outreach mission was to rebuild a wall of the school that was destroyed by the Volcanoes, the local gang of rebels. The book opens with the team still in the small town waiting to go home after completing the mission. Just as ex-marine Palmer Dunn enters the cantina to pick the group up, the rebels rush into town to take over. Palmer, Will, and his friends are imprisoned and must find a way to escape. Gunshots, machine guns, and killing ensue. The group finds a way out of every harrowing situation, but there are consequences. Not all of them make it home. Klavan's Christian bent comes through in the story as Will's thoughts are peppered with his feelings about God and the men who try to inflict violence upon his friends as well as death, which the group faces many times over during the course of their escape. 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