BEING
by Kevin Brooks

This book had grabbed me and was dragging me along by page 2. I had to keep reading. The main character, Robert Smith, discovers during a routine digestive tract checkup that his body is filled with alien stuff. He doesn't have any of the normal organs, but plastic boxes, shining filaments, metal bones, and white and black liquids. He wakes up before he's supposed to, and hears scary men in black suits discussing the contents of his abdominal cavity. He realizes they mean him no good, and proceeds to take over the situation so that he can escape. After being on the move for a couple of days, he makes his way to a girl's apartment whom he had met a year earlier. This girl, Eddi, has the computer equipment and knowledge to create a new identity for Robert, and she realizes she will have to leave her own life behind and go with him, because Robert's pursuers will never stop looking for him, and they will eventually find her. Within another couple of days, Eddi has arranged for them to leave the country for Spain. There they live a carefree life for months, and the plot slows down considerably. Within pages of the end of the book, the men in black suits track them down, shatter their idyllic life, and I realized there just wasn't time to tie up all the loose ends, of which there were many. I certainly hope Kevin Brooks is planning a sequel, or he will be leaving a lot of frustrated readers! However, unfinished plot notwithstanding, this is a great sci-fi thriller and a good story about learning to trust. Being is on the 2008-2009 Tayshas list.

--reviewed by Dail Sams