“Your mother hollers that you’re going to miss the bus.”

From Emmy Laybourne’s Monument 14.

On a day that started out like any other day, Dean and his younger brother, Alex, take their respective buses to school (Dean on the high school bus and Alex riding the elementary/middle school one), but a freak, over-the-top storm makes shelter a life-saving necessity, so their bus driver seeks the safety and shelter from the only nearby option: the Monument, Colorado Greenway superstore.  While the store was only supposed to provide temporary protection from the storm, a series of local and not-so-local happenings create a domino effect that results in the kids being stuck in the store where they are safe from danger, but also unable to leave the building.  Dean and the other highschoolers (Niko, Jake, Astrid, Josie, and Brayden) suddenly find themselves trapped in a store with eight little kids and tweens (Sahalia, Chloe, Batiste, Max, Ulysses, Caroline, and Henry) and no adult supervision.  The survivors biggest issue quickly becomes a chemical leak from NORAD which turns the outside air and water into a deadly or dangerous carrier, depending on blood type.  As the days go by, the Monument 14 quickly find themselves running out of options, struggling to find order among themselves, and tested beyond what they ever imagined.

As the first book in the trilogy, it manages to set up the rest of series nicely while also creating a page-turning thriller.  Contained to the store for the majority of the book, allows the store to feel both limitless and suffocating depending on the point in the story.  The story’s overall intensity and several mature situations will probably make this book too much for readers looking laid-back read, but these elements also make it a captivating read for fans of the genre.  Monument 14 is a thriller that is full of action that will leave readers desperate to jump right into the next book.