Empty

Empty

Suzanne Weyn

Synopsis:
The world is running out of oil. Gas prices have skyrocketed, power goes out for days at a time, and stores wait for days to be restocked. War with Venezuela begins over an oil embargo, and terrible storms caused by global warning threaten to destroy miles of coastal towns. For teens Gwen, Tom, and Niki, it seems to be the end of the world. However, even with all of the chaos, the three teens still have time for their ordinary problems. Gwen has always had a crush on Tom, but she can't seem to get him to notice her. Tom, on the other hand, is desperate to go out with Niki, who has previously been dating the star football player. Still, he does find a strange appeal toward Gwen that he can't explain. Niki is still upset from her break-up, and thinks dating Tom will make her old boyfriend jealous so they can get together again. The relationships between the main characters complicate with the situation of the dropping oil. When a super-hurricane ravages their town, a war starts with people fighting for any supplies they can get. Will the three teens be able to find a solution before the world tears itself apart?

My Thoughts:
I think that the concept of the book is a lot better than the book itself. In my opinion, the relationships took the main plot of the story with the oil crisis there just to complicate the already complicated. And the relationship things that are mentioned aren't really that special. I hear of things similar (without the oil crisis, of course) at school frequently. The parts where Weyn shows her thoughts of how society would react to the shortage of oil were way more interesting and exciting than the rest of the book. At the end, I did still feel the need to go find ways to use less gas, as a book like this should, but I think that there could have been more stress on how bad it made people's lives, not how much it complicates high school dating.

Questions for Thought:
1. If you had limited access to electricity, what would you power? Your cell phone? Laptop? Air conditioning/heating?

2. If you were Gwen and had found the house, would you keep it to yourself instead of risking getting killed for your supplies?

3. What do you think will happen when we really do run out of oil?

One quick unrelated note: Once again, I am VERY sorry that it took me this long to get the review up. Some unexpected conflicts came up, and this is becoming common. From now on, if I say a book review coming tomorrow, it may likely mean "next weekend", even though I do not wish for this to be the case.

Please leave your comments and answers!

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