Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Deeper
Fiction Series
For ages 12 and up
Scholastic, 2009 ISBN: 978-0439871785
When Will followed his archeologist father underground, he had no idea that he would find himself in a strange world hundreds of feet beneath his old home. The people who live in this world, the Colonists, were not happy to see Will, and the overlords in the Colony, the Styx, were determined to get rid of Will and his friend Chester.
Now Will, his brother Cal, and Chester are on the run. They have managed to escape from the Styx, and they are looking for Will's father in the Deeps, a wilderness territory in the underground world that is full of dangers of all kinds.
Over time, the boys discover that the Deeps is not an empty place where people go to die. There are different kinds of people who live there, including renegades who do their best to survive and who, on occasion help one another through hard times. Will, Cal, and Chester are rescued by two such renegades, Drake and Elliot, who help the boys to better understand the deadly world they are in. Drake and Elliot also explain that the Limiters, a crack Styx unit, have been methodically wiping out the people who live in the Deeps. Something sinister is going on and they need to find out what it is.
Above ground Will's birthmother, who ran away from the Colony to give her son a better life, is trying to find out what happened to Will and to his brother Cal. She hears that Will has turned rogue and she is determined to confront him and make him pay for his crimes. Little does she know that her enemies, the dreaded Styx, are planning to use her for their own nefarious purposes.
Picking up where Tunnels left off, this riveting and compelling story will show readers how a seemingly great idea can be corrupted and turned into something that is ugly and violent. The characters that we met in the first book are developed further, and we meet some new people who help us to better understand the world that Will fell into.
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