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Laddar... The Phantom Limbav William Sleator
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Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Young Adult Fiction.
HTML: Isaac is the new kid in town. His mother, Vera, is in the hospital with a mysterious illness, and the only person left to care for Isaac is his distant grandfather. Friendless and often alone, Isaac loses himself in his collection of optical illusions, including a strange mirror box that he finds in his new house, left behind by the previous tenants. Designed for amputees, it creates the illusion of a second limb. Lonely Isaac wishes someone would reach out to him, and then someone does??a phantom limb within the mirror box! It signs to Isaac about a growing danger: someone who has murdered before and is out to get Vera next. The only way Isaac can solve the mystery and save his mother is with the help of the mirror box. But can he trust the phantom limb? Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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I feel terrible giving this such a low rating but the book deserves it. The worst thing is, this is a cool premise that could have been turned into a worthwhile story, but this book is incoherent, illogical, disjointed, contrived, and though supposedly written for ages 14 and up, reads like it's for fourth graders.
The best thing about this book was that it inspired me to google ÃÃmirror boxesÂàand read more about the therapeutic uses (often called ÂÃÃanecdotalÂàby physicians, which is a fancy way of saying that they are not supported by scientific experiments) to relieve phantom limb pain in amputees. Perhaps, like optical illusion enthusiast Isaac, I feel a ÂÃÃmacabre excitementÂàfor the ways our minds trick us into seeing and believing the impossible. ItÂês just kind of freakinÂê neat. I also googled the other optical illusions in IsaacÂês collection -- ÂÃÃThe SnakeÂÃÂ, ÂÃÃAll Is VanityÂÃÂ, the Necker cube, the Menger sponge, and the spiral aftereffect ÂÃà and I have a fun project for you to do. Ready? Okay. Go to your favorite search engine and look at images of the rotating snake and then the spiral aftereffect. Look as long as you can. Then try to get up from your computer and walk away.
See? YouÂêre on the floor now. IsnÂêt that cool? Oh, are you bleeding? Sorry. Maybe I should have told you to line your floor with pillows first, or put on a crash helmet.
You have to stare at optical illusions while reading this book, because it gets you in the right head space for reading something that makes so little sense. In fact, I think the book is some kind of trick. Maybe if I read it again, it will morph into a good book, kind of like the way the woman at the vanity turns into a skull in ÂÃÃAll Is VanityÂÃÂ. But I donÂêt think so.
The plot of this one is convoluted and disjointed, with too many threads that never connect or only connect because of some ridiculous contrivances. When Isaac uses the mirror box, a limb remains in the box even after he removes his own arms, and this phantom limb attempts to communicate with him using gestures and images. Inexplicably, it also gives Isaac visions of the past and present as seen through bathroom mirrors. (DonÂêt ask.) Isaac learns that the previous owner of the mirror box was murdered after having an unneeded arm amputation, and his mother, who is in the hospital after a seizure, is the next target. Not only is she always doped up when he goes to visit, sheÂês already been diagnosed (falsely) with bone cancer and is slated for an amputation. (He learns this by easily hacking into the hospital records on one of the computers at the nurseÂês stations in the two seconds that theyÂêre all conveniently away.) His mother is also a pianist, just like the previous victim! The killer nurse must hate pianists!
Seriously, guys, I canÂêt explain how Isaac learns the story of the killer nurse and her previous victims, because it doesnÂêt really make sense. The takeaway is that Isaac realizes he needs to rescue his mother by sneaking her out of the hospital, and that all of his investigations put him on the killer nurseÂês radar. Because she has the power of medical red tape, apparently, she attempts to get rid of Isaac by drugging him, telling others he passed out, and signing false medical orders while heÂês unconscious, which leads to him having invasive medical treatments (he gets a freakinÂê endoscopy and a CAT scan!) at the hands of unbelievably unaware doctors who are just following ÂÃÃordersÂÃÂ. These scenes are terrifying, to be sure, especially the endoscopy, but they also had me screaming at the lack of plausibility.
Equally implausible is the scene where Isaac eventually convinces his motherÂês doctor that something is wrong with her treatment and they confront the killer nurse together, who the doctor confesses sheÂês always been suspicious of. The doctor is all, ÂÃÃwhy is my patient always unconsciousÂÃÂ, ÂÃÃwhy is my patientÂês diagnosis suddenly saying osteosarcoma when she had no symptoms a week agoÂÃÂ, ÂÃÃwhy does my patient suddenly have a huge sore on her arm and her son says you are burning her with acidÂàÂÃà but THEN ÂÃà duh duh duuuuuuuh ÂÃà her beeper goes off. Too bad, she has to do an emergency brain surgery that could take hours! Sorry, Isaac, youÂêre on your own! LetÂês not even bother to CALL SECURITY to investigate the obvious mistreatment and forging of medical records we just discovered!
My recommendation to stare at optical illusions so long that you fall down serves another purpose, as well; itÂês especially important to understand a key scene in this book, because Isaac literally fells all of the people on a hospital floor with the spiral aftereffect. IsaacÂês version of the optical illusion, in addition to being portable and able to be wielded like some kind of Dizzy Ray, is somehow hypnotic, because nobody thinks of closing their eyes, or looking away, or anything. They just stare at it until they collapse. Even the killer nurse, coming at him with a drill saw.
And those are some of the many, many illogical things that happen in this book. Some more include IsaacÂês grandfather suddenly shaking off his AlzheimerÂês/dementia in order to help Isaac rescue his mother; a bullying set of identical twins that hate Isaac suddenly agreeing to help him; a school buddy accepting IsaacÂês crazy story about the killer nurse and the phantom limb by saying ÂÃÃIÂêd think you were crazy, except . . . for some reason I donÂêtÂÃÂ; and one scene in particular that kills me every time, when Isaac decides to go to bed for the night just after he gets a huge lead in the case that tells him to go look at his optical illusions, which are just UPSTAIRS. I'm sorry, miss your 9 p.m. bed time for once!
I wonÂêt go into all of them, because IÂêm getting punch-drunk with criticism, and aside from this novel, I respect William Sleator for many of his other works, which have maybe never been the best written but have always been thought-provoking and surprising. Skip this one, read House of Stairs or The Last Universe, and have your mind blown in a good way. ( )