My Rating ~ Four stars

4-gold-stars copy

RELEASED: 26 March 2019

Format: Paperback

Pages: 328

RRP: AU$16.95

Blurb

‘ The windows on all the skyscrapers are smashed . . .
No power, no lights, no people . . .
It’s a parallel New York of some kind. ‘

THE COMING END

When Skye Rogers and her twin brother Red move to Manhattan, rumours of a coming global apocalypse are building. But this does not stop the young elite of New York from partying without a care.

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?

And then suddenly Skye is invited to join an exclusive gang known as the Secret Runners of New York.
But this is no ordinary clique – they have access to an underground portal that can transport them into the future. And what Skye discovers in the future is horrifying: the rumours about the coming apocalypse are true . . .

RUN! AS FAST AS YOU CAN!

As society crumbles and Skye and Red race to figure out how to use their knowledge to survive the impending annihilation, they soon discover that the chaotic end of the world is a fine time for revenge . . .

Review

Many thanks to Pan Macmillan Australia for providing me with a copy of The Secret Runners of New York in exchange for an honest review.

Phew, what a ride! Set in a school for the extremely wealthy, The Secret Runners of New York explores the divide, and sometimes simmering hatred, between the super rich, and anyone they class as beneath them.

When Skye starts at her new school, she’s desperate to blend into the background and avoid a social freeze out like she experienced at her last school. But when a chance incident sees her pulled into the ‘cool crowd’, they let her in on a secret – a tunnel showing a future New York, a New York after a global apocalypse. While Skye and her friends try to discover what has happened to their families in this future reality, Skye starts to question which of her friends she can really trust.

This was a fast paced novel that combined the bizarreness of time travel with high school elitism and bitchiness. There were some fantastic twists I didn’t see coming and the story dealt with several themes such as rich vs poor, bullying, peer pressure and seeing through false friendships.

Although the author stated at the end of the book that he didn’t intend to classify the story as YA in particular, I think the themes fit a YA book well and will be enjoyed by adults and teens alike.