The Strangers

Rating: 3/5

I had the main twist of The Strangers spoiled for me because for some reason I have a bad habit of glancing at the copyright page and the Library of Congress tags and summary. (I had this Lauren Oliver book spoiled for me the same way.) I’ll try not to spoil it here in my review.

The Strangers is an interesting story. Basically, Chess, Emma, and Finn’s mother starts acting strangely and then ends up disappearing, leaving behind a coded message. The three children slowly have to unravel the mystery of their mother’s disappearance while also wrestling with the strange news of some kidnapped children who share some similarities with them.

I enjoyed the concept and the application of the overall idea, though the actual presentation left a little something to be desired. There is a lot of handwaving away of the mechanics of what Haddix is trying to build here and a lot of extremely convenient occurrences. In addition, I’m not fond of overly exaggerated evil acts, as I think the demarcation of black and white is usually much more complicated when it comes to human interactions with evil, and thus I prefer a more nuanced view of it in my literature. Being a story for children, I can understand why evil acts are exaggerated as they were here, and there’s lots of moments in this story where Haddix just lays it on thick. I’m not a fan of the way Haddix seems to be setting up why people would act that way in the first place, since it completely undermines any sort of human responsibility for their own actions.

I’m also not fond of books where children come up with a workable plan in five seconds that adults who have agonized over everything for much longer haven’t. “But haven’t you tried x?” says the child innocently, and the adult just blinks and gapes at them. This is essentially what happens here, and it’s very annoying.

So, while I liked the overall idea of the story, I’m not sure I enjoyed it enough to pick up the next book. It’s hard for me to see the ways Haddix could build off this story in any meaningful or interesting way without introducing a whole lot of new and strange concepts. I’m not opposed to that, but common threads weaving throughout books works for a reason, and there’s none of those here.

Info: Margaret Peterson Haddix; published 2019 by Katherine Tegen

Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Realistic

Warnings: None.

Recommended Age Range: 10+