Melody Burning
By: Whitley Strieber
Henry Holt and Co.
ISBN-13: 9780805093278
Beresford doesn’t remember much about his past or how he came to live in the chutes and crawl spaces of the posh high-rise that shares his name. But when rock star and teen sensation Melody McGrath moves to an apartment on the fiftieth floor, he knows he has to be near her. Although she doesn’t realize it, Melody is threatened by more dangerous forces than her manipulative stage mom and the pressures of life in the spotlight. The owner of the glamorous building has been hiding a fatal secret within its walls, and Beresford puts all his plans at risk. Will Beresford and Melody be able to escape with their lives (and love) intact?
Review
The book starts off with a prologue of little Robbie and his Dad being held at gunpoint on a work elevator in an apartment building that's under construction. Dad ends up dying and having his body dumped down the elevator shaft, while Robbie has to hide from the psycho named Luther, who has the gun. Flash forward about ten or eleven years, where everything is all suddenly about teen pop star Melody McGrath, who has moved into the Beresford apartment complex. She is almost certain that someone is inside the walls, spying on her. Her Mom thinks she's having a psychotic break, but Melody is right. Robbie is still in the walls, living in the vent/duct system and sneaking things necessary to his survival from people's apartments. Only, he doesn't remember his name (so he calls himself Beresford) or how old he is, but he's figured out how to DVR the T.V. show Melody is on and is obsessed with her. The owner of the complex wants a hit man to find and get rid of the boy, because he plans to burn down the place for the insurance money. He even built it with code-breaking constructions so the fire would spread faster! Melody discovers Beresford, but he gets taken away. Without him there to protect her, will Melody survive? This book had a promising prologue and I got interested at first. Then it developed a split personality, unable to figure out who was the main character and what the plot was trying to accomplish. I get sick inside when I think about how good this book could've been and wasn't, because Mr. Strieber unsuccessfully tried to write romance between a wild child, with the mind of a preschooler and a mature teenage girl. It sickened me and I wished for the answers to the mystery to be fleshed out - I got crumbs instead of cornbread. Don't read this unless you want to read something that NEVER should have made it past the press, onto the shelves. Waste of ink, sadly enough.
VERDICT: 1/5 Stars and my true revulsion at it's lack of realistic decency (this from someone who used to LOVE Flowers In The Attic as a teenager, which I think says a lot!)
*No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book is now available in stores and online.*
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