Review: Scan

Scan by Walter Jury and Sarah Fine
Publisher: Putnam Children's
Publication date: May 1, 2014

SCAN is an exciting and fast paced sci-fi thriller that is a quick and fun read. It centers around a teenager named Tate, who is anything but typical. His demanding father requires him to learn more than most professors, but his father's strict schedule and boundaries cause a lot of conflict between the two. It turns out, however, that Tate has a good reason for learning all those things; aliens called H2 have infiltrated the human population and Tate is one of the few humans left on Earth. Tate is entrusted with dangerous technology wanted by the H2 and "The Fifty" -a group of human families (including his) that are combating the invasion- but he is surrounded by suspicious individuals on both sides who have dark ulterior motives. With only the aid of his mother, his girlfriend, and his training, Tate must keep the technology safe from everyone.

I enjoyed this book. It was a fun read with intriguing moral undertones about supremacy, labeling, and perspective. The plot and the protagonist's journey was fairly typical, but the supporting characters were very strong and well-developed, especially the women. It contains moderate violence and likely caters more to boys than girls, but it was quite a good book.