Lockdown This Book

By Matthew R.

The book Lockdown is written by Alexander Gordon Smith. It was published on March 5, 2009. The author Alexander Gordon Smith has written many other books like the Lockdown series that contains 5 books in the series and he has also written many other series. These series include The Inventors, The Fury, and The Devil's Engine. He likes to write children's novels as well. Smith's idea for the furnace series was influenced by his younger years when he didn't hang out with really good people and he got one of his teeth knocked out at a fight. The main genre is young adult fiction and science fiction. It is a really cool book to kids about a boy named Alex and his friend Toby who rob people.

This book has a start that is interesting because it is about a kid my age (14) and he is a robber along with his friends. Right in the beginning of the book Alex and his friend Toby break into a house and already the action is escalating. Alex is with Toby and a couple of men in suits shoot Toby right in front of alex terrifying him. Alex watches his friend die and is then framed for his murder. So he is sent to a prison that was made long ago for gangs and it's called the furnace. It was never a boring book to me it always kep me interested and I thought it was a fascinating story. It was easier to keep track of the characters than the last book I read. But it gets even more scary and cooler.

When in the "Furnace" at night the warden takes people out of their cells to conduct experiments on them. This causes many people in the furnace so some people in the ""furnace" with Alex work together to try and escape. I thought it was a really cool aspect to make into a book it was very enjoyable for me. It would not be very fun to be in the same situation. Think about some people you recently met being taken away in the middle of the night and then they had died due to some weird experiments. It is very creepy when you think about it. The book keeps getting you nervous and almost placing you in Alex's shoes. When you can imagine yourself in the characters shoes it makes the book 2 times more intense and better to read.  

In the end I thought that Lockdown Escape From The Furnace was a really good book despite some of its few flaws. First the very few flaws. One flaw was how scary it was. Now it wasn't scary to me but I could see this being scary to a 10 year old. First off it takes place in an underground prison and at night a warden takes people out of their cells screaming and then they die and get experimented on. So if younger readers reading this are reading before bed they will most likely get nightmares.One other flaw I found was that the 14 year old going to a prison for life could happen in real life but surely if he was framed they now have many more ways to catch the real culprit. Those are the only things I found bad about this book.

The good things I found about this book was the story. The story in a whole was great and I loved the aspect of it. I loved the beginning and it's not a book that takes the first 100 pages to get into you can read the first 25 or so pages and already be excited to read and find out what happens next.I think that it's a little weird that a 14 year old is breaking into houses with his friends. I loved the horrific part where people get taken out in the middle of the night. I thought that the characters and the "furnace" were described very well. While reading the book you can imagine yourself in the same situations that Alex is in. Those who love scary and things that are kind of science-y and weird.  

After reading this book and giving it a review I come to the last question would I recommend it? I would definitely recommend this book to people who aren't afraid of scary things. I myself enjoy scary things like some jumpscare games I own on my xbox. This book brings things like that to real life. I would rate this book a 9 of 10 because it was amazing. The action and the creepy moments the book were outstanding. I would definitely read this book and recommend it to people who aren't scared. This book is only one in the series so since the first one was so good i am encouraged into reading more books by Alexander Gordon Smith and reading the rest of the series to see how it ends.