Thieves by Ella West
Have you ever wanted to close your eyes and suddenly be somewhere else? I have. Who hasn’t?
Nicky has regularly been able to ‘disappear’ into her closet at home all her life. She has kept this ability a secret, naturally. But one day while reading aloud in English she suddenly finds herself in her closet. Public disappearance is frowned upon, and Nicky finds that she has been removed from school out to a camp in the desert and suddenly joined something called The Project. With her are several other kids with the same ability to disappear. The Project managers begin to send them out on missions, sometimes search and rescue, sometimes information gathering, and sometimes even more dangerous and illegal activities. Are these ‘talented’ kids powerless against the adults, or can they fight back?
I remember this book was a quick read. I got caught up in the storyline and a two hour train journey saw the book finished nicely before the end. I put it down with a thousand thoughts spinning in my head, but no place to write anything down, and no time. So it is going to be hard to recapture my initial response. Yes, the book has slow spots. This is after all a first time author. But I expect the readers are going to care about the characters enough to push through the slow bits in order to find out what happens.
However, I suspect there will be a real problem in marketing this to students. The print is small, and the story takes awhile to get started. A shame really, because I think it is a worthy read.
