Teenreads.com -- UNLEASHED by Kristopher Reisz

UNLEASHED
Kristopher Reisz
Simon Pulse
Urban Fantasy/Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781416940012
352 pages

Are you a fan of TWILIGHT? Cirque du Freak? Then get ready for a dark story to be unleashed on you. UNLEASHED introduces readers to a group of outcasts who become wolves and prowl the City of Birmingham at night. The book turns what you think you know about jocks and loners on its head to deliver suspense and magic.

Daniel Morning is a high school golden boy. He has his acceptance to Cornell, his hot girlfriend Angie and his pack of A-list friends. No one needs to know that a psychologist was paid to sign a letter confirming his nonexistent ADHD so he could get a better SAT score. No one needs to know that Angie is sometimes a racist and disgusts him.

Misty and Marc are used to racial insults. Being biracial in Birmingham sadly means “mutt” to some classmates like Angie, but they are proud of their heritage, including their grandfather, who marched in the city’s Civil Rights Movement. They are friends with two more loners, Eric and Val, and none of them have the means to dream about Cornell or any real future beyond high school graduation in a few months. One boring night they discover an abandoned foundry that has magic mushrooms growing on its grounds. Once cooked and consumed, they turn the four friends into a pack of wolves that prowl the city.

The line between who they are as humans and as wolves begins to blur. Misty is suspended for racing out of class to help a dog hit by a car in front of the school. Daniel wonders why he just sat there while Misty was brave enough to go do something. He never tells her about Cornell and thinks that good boy life is so different that the omission wouldn’t matter to her. Misty brings Daniel into the pack, and the group grows tighter as even their human forms are affected. His old friends and Angie disappear from Daniel’s mind, and only the pack remains.

When a teacher slights Misty, the pack chooses to retaliate with violent destruction. It is a turning point for all of them as they decide if their human or wolf sides are more desirable. Questions about the future loom closer, and Daniel is caught further between his two worlds. When everything comes to clash, each must make decisions about who they are and what they must do to change.

UNLEASHED offers an interesting and dark twist on the question of what happens after graduation. While at first it may seem like a jock and outsider love story, the conflict builds suspense and the plot offers many surprises. This is not just another werewolf story or a high school creature of the night tale. The questions and characters will resonate with both fans of dark supernatural stories and anyone struggling to decide who they are and what the future will look like. Kristopher Reisz offers realistic emotion and choices in his second novel.

--- Reviewed by Amy Alessio

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