Welcome to a town with some strange things happening!

So I have to say I was a bit worried when I spotted this at the library. Rob Biddulph has fantastic art, I love his picture books, but his Peanut Jones series was not a hit, I tried reading it in English (twice) and Dutch (once) and DNF-ed all three times. So I wasn’t sure if his MG stuff would be for me. While I did have some issues with this one/pacing felt a bit weird, I did have fun with it. Will I be reading the next one though? Not sure.

What did I like?

💖 The whole gene thing and that it gives you a tattoo if you have the gene (which apparently doesn’t mean you will become a werewolf, but still you carry the gene).
💖 Esau. While he did seem a bit too plot convenient with his hacker skills (see things I didn’t like) I do love that he was in a wheelchair. This sounds bad, but I mean that I like the inclusivity. I also loved that no matter what happened he kept up with his friends, did the same things they did. Hope that makes sense, I am quite tired as I am writing this.
💖 Jovi. She was such a sweet character and I love how strong and determined she was.
💖 The town. Reading about the factories that loom in the background. The little old buildings. The woods that are quite abundant. I could very well imagine myself running along with the kids!
💖 The maps at the start! I always LOVE LOVE a good map.
💖 Raven and her doggo were such fantastic characters. I love how they helped out the kids. And I love her house hidden in the forest, so well made it is as if there is no house at all.
💖 The moons on the endpaper, though I would have liked to see if a bit difference in each of them, now I couldn’t find any and so it felt like someone just copy-pasted the moon a few times and added the names for each moon.
💖 The tons and tons of illustrations! This book is seriously packed with them and I loved them. One of the biggest reasons why I kept reading even when the story at times felt a bit wobbly. Rob Biddulph has such a fabulous style and I love how things were brought to life.
💖 The villain was truly villainous. He has big plans and he has the power to do them. I disliked him so much. Each time he came in the story I wanted to just yeet something, haha.
💖 While the pacing at the end made no sense, I did love the latter part of the book. Kids (and others) vs the villain. There was action, sensation, thrills, and tears.

What issues did I have?

🤔 Well, for instance that no one apparently batted an eye that breaking the curfew would mean 5 years in jail and that it counted for everyone. Even for kids.
🤔 How people just SHOUTED and apparently no one heard them? I mean the kids regularly would shout MOONLIGHTERS and no one batted an eye. Even when it is in a tough situation or at night.
🤔 Then the fact that in the latter part they are in cells (read the story to find out why) and that they just stayed there for a month and no one batted an eye. Plus, the way time moved was just so weird, it felt more like days, but then suddenly a month was gone and I was like WHUT, you mean they actually stayed there for a whole month? Hello? What?
🤔 The way Jax totally flipped his lid when Purple told her story was just very out of place and felt odd, I just had to re-read some parts to see if I missed something and if she had said something offensive of some sorts, but no.
🤔 The super convenience of having a hacker bro who will just hack the cameras without any effort so that the kids could walk the streets. It was such a weird thing. I would have rather have seen them hack some cameras or try to stay out of the way. But nah, this bro can just do a click and then all routes are camera free. Whoo.
🤔 I mean, these kids would NOT survive a fucking zombie apocalypse. Jax had clear CLEAR clawmarks and while they were sus about it he got away with the comment of that he fell out of a tree. What tree does that. I mean, I can see this happen that zombies attack and someone gets bitten and the excuse will be I hit the wall or something and they will just shrug.
🤔 The total obviousness of what Jax is (and I don’t see it as a spoiler as it happens early on and is SO OBVIOUS). Geez. And I kept wondering when it would be addressed but not really until the end. That was such a disappointment, wouldn’t it have been cool if they had THAT kind of power with them?
🤔 The way the book was written at times just felt a bit odd, a bit off. I am not sure how I could describe it better, but something just didn’t work correctly and while I did get through the book sometimes I just had to put it away for a few seconds to think.
🤔 Fourth. I mean, he wasn’t too bad, but his POV didn’t make me the happiest. He just kept worrying. Kept making dumb mistakes or saying dumb stuff.
🤔 When the villain showed our cast THAT and I was like, oh god no, please, no. I have seen that plot device one too many times and it is always so dumb. I cannot tell much more because spoilers, so I will keep it at this.

So yeah, a bit of a mixed bag. I still had fun reading and I do like the plot for most, the illustrations were just the best in the book.