Cured

Jacqui lives as Jack in a dangerous zombie-ish dystopia caused by a vaccine's unforeseen effects. Searching for her missing older brother, Jacqui joins forces with Fiona Tarsis (Stung), who has the cure for the rabid vaccine recipients, but they are sidetracked by raiders. Mysterious romance and eleventh-hour reveals do not rescue this sequel from its meandering plot and clunky gender politics. (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Jack Bloom leaves behind a sheltered, if slightly warped, suburban life to seek missing brother Dean and Mrs. Tarsis, the woman Dean tried to lead to safety, in this simmering sequel to Stung (2013). Exercise and rationing have turned Jack from a chubby and sensitive child into a hardened survivalist, but even three years of deprivationdelivered in flashbacksoutside the safety of the walled city of Denver cannot successfully transform Jacqui Aislynn Bloom into a boy. As in the first book, women are a hot commodity, and Jack is doubly endangered when she travels with fierce but feminine Fiona "Fo" Tarsis to find their missing family members. Accompanied by Fo's beau, Dreyden Bowen, and Fo's emotionally and physically scarred brother, Jonah, the girls soon add another manthe sexy but enigmatic Kevinto their group as they run into raiders, romantic entanglements and other typical teen dystopian troubles. While the Mad Maxesque raiders and zombielike beasts (children transformed into murderous monsters by their vaccines against the bee flu) seem to be standard post-apocalyptic fare, Wiggins poignantly raises issues of transformation and redemption. Despair and destruction are sweetened by hope and love. (Science fiction. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.