Reivew for Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Warning! spoilers ahead

I was reading this book as my A book for the A-Z book challenge. I had never read this book before, and I figured it would be a good one to try for this challenge.

Synopsis: Luke has never been to school. He's never had a birthday party, or gone to a friend's house for an overnight. In fact, Luke has never had a friend.

Luke is one of the shadow children, a third child forbidden by the Population Police. He's lived his entire life in hiding and now, with a new housing development replacing the woods next to his family's farm, he is no longer even allowed to go outside.

Then, one day Luke sees a girl's face in the window of a house where he knows two other children already live. Finally, he's met a shadow child like himself.

Jen is willing to risk everything to come out of the shadows -- does Luke dare to become involved in her dangerous plan? Can he afford not to?

This book was short, only being 153 pages long. I felt that it was quite a good book, but it did have flaws.

Being rated for 8-12 year old readers, I realized that being 20 and reading this book, I found a lot of flaws.

First, the things I liked about this book.

1. It is realistic. Our society is headed in this direction. Sooner or later, we will run out of food, and have too many people to feed.
2. It was a fast read. It only took me an hour, but I enjoyed it.
3. I loved the main character. I felt bad for Luke. He was constantly stuck in an attack after his only safe place, the woods, was taken down. He was kept away from any people, because he could be killed. It was sad.

Now, the things I disliked about this book.

1. Things moved too quickly. While I liked it being a fast read, I disliked the lack of detail. Among the Hidden jumped around from different topics, and I was finding it hard to keep up with the story.
2. I did NOT like Jen. While everyone understood why they had to stay indoors, Jen didn't. She was the outcast, she was the dangerous one. She got herself killed.
3. The ending was ok, at best. I feel that Jen's dad gave too much mercy to Luke, I felt that Luke's parents were too quick to let him walk out of their lives, and I felt unconnected to other characters, beside Luke. If it was a book all about Luke, and no one else, I'd be happy.
 
Overall, I was happy with the work. This is the first book that I read by Haddix, even though this isn't the first time I wanted to read it. Haddix was popular while I was in elementary and middle school, and I desperately wanted to read her work. I never got the chance then, however.

I give Among the Hidden 3 and a half books.