{"id":6883,"date":"2016-04-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=6883"},"modified":"2016-04-14T18:00:03","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T23:00:03","slug":"o-is-overpowered-by-strange-forces-by-mark-h-kruger-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=6883","title":{"rendered":"O is Overpowered by strange forces, by Mark H. Kruger (book review)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"book<\/a>Lowest crime rate town in Colorado<\/a>,
\ndeadliest place for birds, it seems,
\nmaybe to people, too?<\/p>\n

Nica hates the curfew and play-it-safe ways of Barrington, where she now must live with her doctor dad after years of world-trekking with her journalist mom.<\/p>\n

But the strange light flashes at night and scores of dead birds that no one comments on and regular blood tests at school (sponsored by the town’s major employer) are weird, truly weird.<\/p>\n

A few other students think so too, but a little investigating starts a whole lot of trouble<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How to decide when to play it safe or when to go after the truth?
\n**kmm<\/p>\n

Book info<\/strong>: Overpowered \/ Mark H. Kruger. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2014 (paperback).\u00a0 [author site<\/a>]\u00a0 [publisher site<\/a>]\u00a0 [author interview<\/a>] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n

My book talk<\/strong>: Globe-trotting Nica gets stuck in a small, super-safe, super-friendly small Colorado town where the teen discovers eerie light beams after curfew that may be linked to sudden changes in everyone’s behavior, but investigating could be deadly.<\/p>\n

Mom’s headed for Antarctica, so Nica has to stay with her dad in the most boring town ever – low crime rate, mandatory curfew, a tech company that supports the high school in everything (and runs the town’s private security force). A missing girlfriend recently, but no one will talk about her.<\/p>\n

Why doesn’t anyone ever object to repeated blood tests at school or notice the green light pulse at night or comment about all the dead birds in the morning?<\/p>\n

What triggers the townspeople’s about-face from pleasantly calm to angry at everyone?<\/p>\n

Were Nica, Oliver, and Jackson enhanced by the light pulse or targeted by someone because they investigated?<\/p>\n

First in a series that looks at safety, super-powers, and the ties of family and friendship in new ways.\u00a0 (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lowest crime rate town in Colorado, deadliest place for birds, it seems, maybe to people, too? Nica hates the curfew and play-it-safe ways of Barrington, where she now must live with her doctor dad after years of world-trekking with her journalist mom. But the strange light flashes at night and scores of dead birds that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,51,41],"tags":[10,90,22,4,11,20,5,70,37,16,18,40,44,43,27,49,184,15,9,21,35,33,58,3,8,28],"class_list":["post-6883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-mystery","category-paranormal","tag-a2z","tag-abandonment","tag-behavior","tag-belonging","tag-communication","tag-conflict","tag-coping","tag-crime","tag-death","tag-determination","tag-family","tag-fathers","tag-friendship","tag-growing-up","tag-medical","tag-memories","tag-mothers","tag-relationships","tag-school","tag-self-image","tag-surprises","tag-survival","tag-technology","tag-teens","tag-us-author","tag-villains"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6883"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7060,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6883\/revisions\/7060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}