TREX by Christyne Morrell
I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and Libro.fm, online retailers that support independent booksellers. If you make a purchase by clicking through the links in this post, I will receive a commission. For more information, see my “About” page.
I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from the publisher in order to write this review.
The new boy has a superpower. Mellie was watching from her bedroom window–the perfect spot for a detective to sit and observe–and she saw the blue lightning streak from his fingertips. It’s the first big mystery she’s ever encountered in the neighborhood, and even though she usually avoids school and the crippling stomachaches she often gets when she leaves her house, Mellie knows she has to take the risk. If she’s going to solve the mystery, she has to make contact with Lightning Boy.
All Trex has ever wanted to do is go to school like a normal kid. Unfortunately, the electric charge built up by his mechanical brain can lead to mishaps. For example, accidentally shooting blue lightning from his hands when he touches a metal statue. The lightning is new, and kind of alarming. Trex knows he should tell his mom, but she’ll just insist they move. Again. They’ve been on the run from the mysterious company that gave him his bionic brain after the catastrophic car accident that killed his father (and almost killed him) and she’d never let him go to school if she knew about the lightning. So Trex decides to keep his secret. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one with secrets. There’s a prowler in the neighborhood, and a gang of bullies at the school, and if Trex wants to keep his secret safe, he might have to team up with the girl who has come the closest to exposing him.
This extraordinary middle-grade sci-fi thriller is a page-turner from beginning to end. Though action and danger sometimes rise to the forefront, Morrell never neglects the character depth that drives the story and uses the sci-fi adventure as a vehicle to explore mental health issues and bullying. With a message of “you are not broken,” she creates a therapy-positive storyline for her character with an anxiety disorder and addresses the issue of mental health medication with sensitivity and nuance. I stayed up way too late reading this one because I couldn’t put it down! I highly recommend it to middle grade fans of sci-fi and/or thrillers and to book clubs.
Susan the Librarian 