Chapter by Chapter

I didn’t know what to expect from Dangerous by author Shannon Hale. I haven’t read any of the author’s previous works and the description that I read for the book was pretty vague. Still, I was curious and I was interested in seeing what the novel would be about. What I anticipated from the novel was nothing like what I got (pretty shocking in my opinion). There’s action, sci-fi and alien technology among other things. Pretty intense, guys.

Dangerous tells the story of main character Maisie Danger Brown, the daughter of two scientists who can only dream about going into space. So when the opportunity arises in the form of a contest Maisie eagerly enters and gains acceptance into a special program for a group of teens to experience a space camp. It’s there that Maisie meets kids just like her and gets sent into space where the scientists in charge of her and her group introduce them to alien materials that will change their lives forever.

After coming into contact with the alien tech Maisie and her friends are suddenly capable of amazing, superhuman feats and become a part of a task force to use their powers seemingly for good. However it doesn’t take long for one member of the team to succumb to her abilities and become a threat. Suddenly the powers that the teens have are dangerous and each of them face coming to terms with it and not letting it control them. As Maisie delves deeper into the mystery behind the technology and people who gave her her abilities it becomes devastatingly clear that the fate of not just everybody she loves but the very world might all be resting in her hands.

Dangerous has a somewhat slow start. After reading the first chapter I was a bit hesitant to get reading because it seemed like the novel would have a slow pace and be pretty dull. At a first glance I wasn’t very interested in Maisie’s character. She’s a braniac teenage girl who has one arm and half of the other but I felt like her character was going to be a total Mary Sue from how she’s portrayed in those first few chapters. But once Maisie goes to ‘space camp’ everything about her changes and she (in a fashion similar to what happened to The Fantastic Four) gains superhuman abilities.

The plot for Dangerous does jump around a lot. At the start there’s a clear consistency that does give the novel a bit of a thrilling atmosphere but after a member of Maisie’s team dies the novel begins to get random. There are certain scenes that felt realistic considering the situation that Maisie finds herself in and then there were some others that just had me furrowing my brow and going huh? I had high hopes for the story after what happened in the beginning but my interest began to wane halfway through.

Apart from that, the romance in the novel really wasn’t working for me. It was very forced and made no sense. The love interest (who I won’t name because spoilers) comes off as sweet in the beginning but turns out to be a scheming jerk. That alone should have made Maisie kick him to the curb however later on in the novel she excuses all of the insane, unforgivable things that he does all for a romance that was more lust than love.
While Dangerous didn’t work out very well for me any readers who are looking for a Fantastic Four-esque sci-fi read should give Dangerous a shot. Any readers who are interested in novels with a superhero theme to it or just want a very unique story should look at getting their hands on Dangerous.