Imagine watching a high school football game, and the star running back dies. Rumors of a new super drug called ruby are circulating, and naval officers under the name S.Y.L.O. have come to quarantine the island because of a lethal new virus. Tucker Pierce, a freshmen at Pemberwick High, a small island just off the coast of Maine, suspects there is more to S.Y.L.O than meets the eye. He is not alone, his friends Quinn Carr and Tori Sleeper are on a mission to find out what is really going on with the government in D.J MacHale’s S.Y.L.O

MacHale, author of the Pendragon series, does a fantastic job of creating stunning visuals. He can create realistic worlds sprinkled with just enough imagination to fuel readers. For example, when Tucker, Quinn and Tori see a man gunned down on the beach, readers will both see and feel what happened that fateful night.

In addition to incredible sensory description, MacHale, also creates genuine and honest dialogue. He can take each characters personalities, wants, needs and desires, and translate them into speech. Through his dialogue, readers can infer that Kent has the hots for Olivia, and the complex relationship concerning Tucker, Quinn, and Tori.

MacHale will keep readers in a state of disbelief. He does this by basing elements of the story with science. He justified time travel by creating a wormhole by detonating a nuclear bomb inside a small area, pressurizing the local area to create a wormhole.

MacHale also knows how to stretch readers. Ruby is a PED: a performance enhancing drug. Ruby does its job well. It increases awareness, strength, speed, and stamina. However, in high doses, Ruby will cause the body to over exert itself, causing the user to die. This presents the question, how far will you go be the very best?

There are also themes of government overreach. How far should the military go to protect its citizens? Should the government lie?

All in all, S.Y.L.O is an incredible book for all ages., and can be found wherever books are sold.