A lot of things happen to these youths, not all of them good.But they wind up with a close-knit group of friends. The evil alien (who survived) is finally dead, they solve a major crime from their world. Everyone but Alex finds the love of their life, and the WB Station produces a sleazy and completely-off-the-mark television series based on the book. What, would it kill you guys to ACTUALLY FOLLOW THE BOOK? What's wrong with a latina heroine?
Gilman found this series and introduced me to it. I found book two. I loved Roswell High, but it turns out the series I introduced him to became his major thing. The series was Countdown. Now, keep in mind, when this series came out, it was before 2000. Some people thought the world would end when the computers all quit. Some thought the Rapture would happen. Some thought Elvis would host a live reunion concert in Memphis. There were twelve books in the collection. The first was named... January. The second was February. Can you guess what the third one was? Marzo? Well, close. If you speak Spanish. The third was March. And so on, until December. It starts out in January 2000. As the clock turns to 00:00, some...weird stuff starts happening. Like, people over 21 and under 13 turn into black goo and melt away, leaving the only people alive- that we know of- teenagers and young adults. Are you scared yet?
From there, it moves on. The kids want to know: what's going on? What happened? As you can guess, society as a whole breaks down. It's been a while since I read this, so I can only give you what I remember. Socieity - which was ruled by adults- breaks down completely. Anarchy becomes the norm. People wander about, seeking answers to what's going on. Kids form gangs and take over locations to make money. People find these "prophecies" that seemed to have come true. The book series goes on, depicting what happens to various teenagers. I stopped reading in July, which is when Gilman moved, because the only thing keeping me psyched about it was our discussion. I have no idea what actually happens, but the general conclusion - from what people had so far discovered in the books- was that it was some sort of Russian biological weapon that had gotten into the wrong hands, or went off wrong, or just went off when it was never intended to be used after the collaspe of the USSR. The plot was getting deep when I stopped reading. I don't know what happened to my copies of the books, unfortunately. They were starting to creep me out, though, so no major loss.
I can't leave middle school, however, without telling you of the Life-Changing Series I found in seventh grade. One night, I was standing in the WaldenBooks of the Montgomery Mall, looking for a book to read. A title caught my eye- "Ducky". Now that, I thought to myself, is the most amazingly absurd title I've ever heard. I must check this out. And so I do. And it turns out to be the fictional journal of a sophomore high school student named Christopher McCrae- known as "Ducky". I read a few passages and identifiy with him, because he's having the same problem I was then having- his two best friends suddenly going completely seperate paths from him, leaving him alone and confused. At this point, two of my lifelong pals were going another way from me, too- a way that involve police reports and dangerous music. I noticed that this was part of a series called California Diaries, and there were several others. I read a few passages from some of them, and bought all I could afford (3). This series is undoubtedly the best series I've ever read. It is a series of journals by five kids. One is a sophomore, Ducky. The other four are eighth-grade girls who have recently been moved from their middle school to the high school building- Dawn, Sunny, Maggie, and Amalia. The first three girls are old friends, and begin the series worried about a split between them and another one of their childhood chums, Jill. While these three think it's time to get away from puppies, bears, and rabbits, Jill is very much an elementary school student in a middle-school student's body.
Page 3 - we're still in middle school!