‘No Safety in Numbers’ Series (REVIEW)

I'm proud to say that the following example of Junie's work was published on her high school's newspaper site The Crimson Star on November 15th  (there being no physical copy produced in this dark age.)  A PDF copy has been preserved for our family records. 

Congratulations and good job Junie!

 

THE FIRST BOOK: NO SAFETY IN NUMBERS

Safety in numbers is a long-standing theory that an individual in a large crowd is less likely to be a victim of some type of harmful event. The book No Safety In Numbers by Dayna Lorentz, much like the title suggests, challenges this theory and proves it wrong. With four character perspectives interchanging throughout the trilogy—teenagers Marco, Ryan, Shay, and Lexi—this trilogy is a whirlwind of emotions, and for a large majority of the time, not in a very good way.

The book centers around an epidemic and because of it, a common complaint online is that the era of Covid-19 has lessened the “coolness” of the plot. But honestly, even having lived through a similar flu-like virus to the book, the plague plot was not a problem for me. In fact, the idea behind the book itself was still one of, if not the, most interesting part of the book for me. 

Here’s the gist: Four teens go shopping at a mall on a normal weekend. One of the teens, Marco, a food service employee inside the mall, finds a terrorist-made bomb in the mall’s parking garage on his way to work. He calls 911, and soon, the entire family of the state’s senator, including one of the four teens, Lexi, and other government doctors, security, and personnel are in the mall. Quick enough, it’s discovered that the bomb has set off an ultra-fine mist of a contagious flu-like virus and causes the mall to go under quarantine in fear of said virus affecting the general public.  

One teen, Shaila, starts off the first book alongside her grandmother, whom she calls Nani, and her little sister, whose name is Preeti. Her initial introduction is an interaction with the fourth teen, Ryan, who’s a popular football player at their school. (It should be noted that in his free time, with the help of his friends Mike and Drew, Ryan bullies and spews racial remarks at Marco!) Within this interaction, Ryan and Shaila find a liking for each other, which begins a love-triangle between her, Ryan, and Marco that will be strung along for another two books and even acts as one character’s push to start an anti-hero arc. It also creates a pretty dynamic situation for the senator’s daughter Lexi, a nerdy character who doesn’t even meet the other characters until at least halfway through the second book. 

Lexi, in the first book, is accompanied by some popular girls from her school named Ginger and Maddie—two life-long best friends who actually ended up being my favorite character dynamic. 

All in all, the first book was decent. I was often indifferent to it or yearning for more excitement, but it was still, at the very least, good. Well written. Well, well-written enough, anyway. For me, I would’ve opted for less stagnant, more dynamic characters and subplots. Though the conclusion of the book, which includes Shaila’s grandmother dying, Marco teaming up with Ryan’s crew and the riots that end with Lexi being buried under dead bodies and abandoned by Ginger, was good, and did effectively set up the second book.

If only the second book had actually followed that setup. If only. 

THE SECOND BOOK: NO EASY WAY OUT

The second book, was, needless to say, pretty damn bad. I’d like to be more delicate, but it was like Lorentz was trying to make up for how boring her first book was. Jam-packed with horny teenagers, parties for alcoholics, gang violence, character deaths and messy plotlines, the second book, No Easy Way Out, proved to definitely be…something. 

At the end of the first book, Marco teams up with Mike, Drew, and Ryan for a trade: they protect Marco, and in return, he helps hide them from government officials who want them to return back to the mall’s official homebase, “Homemart”. The thing is, though, is that the government officials knew where they were hiding. In fact, the senator makes Marco team up with her to secretly keep her updated on their activities. And I actually really appreciated that plotline. I loved the senator’s character, and his relationship with her really did foreshadow his situation with Lexi—that was smart. I also did love that his double life, or, triple life, between the senator’s assignments for him, hiding Ryan’s clan, and staying in the Homemart, creates such a gradual decline of his character. I mean, he just starts losing it. By the end of the book, he’s abandoned all of his other lives completely and just becomes best friends with Mike and Drew. He even starts a gang inside of the mall with the two, eventually becoming so extreme in his gang practices that he even scares away Ryan.

But after gang co-founder Drew eats a fully alive chicken during a Marco-and-Mike planned party, kisses angry Lexi on the lips nonconsensually, and dies painfully from a newly discovered strain of the flu, Ryan abandons the life with Mike and Marco all together and starts living with Shay and some kids he finds in the parking garage. (Spoiler Alert: that storyline with the kids doesn’t stay very relevant. Shocker.) 

Honestly though, the real kicker is that Shaila was JUST kissing up on Marco! Marco and Shay have an entire situationship and it’s again discarded for Ryan and Shay’s relationship. It’s so frustrating. Why would the entirety of the first book AND the first quarter of the second lead up to Marco and Shaila’s relationship and her finding out what a bully Ryan is, just for her to choose Ryan anyway? It all seemed unnecessary, and frankly, just morally wrong. I found her character, for most of this sequel, absolutely unbearable. 

What I don’t understand, though, is why, after all they’d done to Marco, he starts becoming the bad guy? Marco, in the first book, pretty solidly acts as the typical sweet, nerdy, written-by-a-woman type of male character. But in this book, we start to see his character gradually shift into what Ryan SHOULD be and WAS in the first book. 

I guess the arc itself doesn’t necessarily upset me. Actually, all things considered, I think it kind of makes sense. Sweet guy never taken seriously finally sticks up for himself and becomes his own person? Done before. But this was different. Marco takes a far different route in terms of “Sticking up for himself.” I mean, to be blunt, he becomes quite the war criminal.

And while his whole war criminal act does kind of scare me, I, regardless, just don’t understand why it’s never discussed that RYAN bullied Marco FIRST. Like, in one scene, when working together, Ryan says to Marco, “You haven’t always been this much of an asshole.”

Like, yeah, you helped make him this way? I mean, your best friends in this mall literally called him “Taco” for half of the book, and your girlfriend led him on for the entire previous book? 

Obviously, in Ryan and Shay’s point of view, it’ll be told from their perspective, which is bound to be biased, but don’t you think there should be at least a little bit of empathy in their character’s heads? They don’t seem to think they’re wrong, ever. Ryan has a pretty big hero complex. 

Not that it excuses Marco’s later actions and his gang affiliation— it’s just something I wish would’ve been touched on. Marco isn’t evil— he’s a teenage boy in a survival situation who just wants to prove himself. Though, again, the arc itself makes sense. And I do have to appreciate the author’s guts to completely uproot and ruin the favorite character of the original book. I mean, having him team up with Anti-Vaxxer Mike and “I eat live animals” Drew? Having him become a gang leader? That takes major audacity. 

On a less bitter note, other characters really did thrive in this book. 

By other characters, I mean Lexi. She is a good character. A little naive, sure, as she did fall in love with Marco within three seconds of seeing his face, but alas, I really did enjoy her plot line with Marco. She brought humanity to Marco’s character in this book, and I enjoyed her third-wheeling with Ginger and Maddie as it set up the third book nicely. Though—on the note of Ginger—why was she welcomed back so freely into Lexi’s circle? Sure, it makes sense that Maddie would welcome her with open arms—they’re best friends.  Yes, there was a fair section of the book in which Lexi spent being disgusted with Ginger, but after a while, it all just fizzed out. Almost like it was forgotten completely that Ginger left Lexi to die a few days ago. Why start a plotline just to not stick with it? 

Starting plotlines for no apparent reason seemed to be a trend with this book.

All in all, I didn’t hate reading it. Really, I didn’t. It was more exciting than the last. It just wasn’t done well. It’s like the author didn’t have an editor. (Seriously, where was her editor?) 

Several scenes AND plots could’ve been cut completely. So many plots kept being introduced that you just kept thinking, “when does it stop?”

Between the kids in the parking garage, Ginger abandoning Lexi, and Shay going back and forth between wanting to be in hiding and wanting to live in Homemart, it’s just a whole lot of nonsensical storylines with no real point. There’s even a scene where Shay ALMOST gets sexually assaulted, and I guess my question is: Why? The brutality of the situation was already covered. Why include such a sensitive and traumatizing event just for it to never be discussed again?

The ending of the book consisted of Marco and Lexi’s situation officially ending, Lexi’s dad dying, Shay going into hiding with Ryan, Marco losing pretty much every shred of humanity left, and Lexi disappearing. Oh, and thank God it ended, because the third book is much, much better. It was very refreshing after reading such a mess of a novel.

THE THIRD BOOK: NO DAWN WITHOUT DARKNESS

Ienjoyed the third book—No Dawn Without Darkness—I really did. It was an insane improvement from the last two. For starters, it was the shortest of the trilogy, and the book opened in a first person perspective. The last two had been in third. Also, the book was organized. Every chapter started with a new character—names listed at the top! Previously, perspectives between characters would end in the middle of pages and it could get pretty confusing. When I opened this book, my first thought was, “They found an editor!”

The book opens in the perspective of Ginger, Lexi’s friend. Ginger is a perspective we hadn’t gotten yet, and I found that her character was really well written and fluid compared to others. Her perspective in this book was led by a plotline given to them by The Senator, who told Ginger and her best friend Maddie to look for Lexi, who is still missing.

In a sense, it was the first time that the author had written a character that wasn’t afraid of understanding their flaws. Humans aren’t perfect—especially in life-or-death situations. And Ginger definitely wasn’t afraid to say, “Hey, don’t you think it’s weird that we’re spending this entire book looking for a girl who might as well be dead?” That kind of natural human mindset, alongside Maddie’s mindset of, “Yeah, this might be a lost cause, but she’s our friend, and it’s the right thing to do,” made for a dynamic that was heartfelt and a lot of fun to read. After the first book, when Ginger had left Lexi to die, it was really cool to see the progression and development of her character. 

But here is the most impressive part: This storyline of finding Lexi was NOT forgotten like the several others the author had written previously. In fact, not only did this storyline last the entire book, but it also made for the single handedly most upsetting character death in the entire trilogy, AND it wrapped up the ending of the series perfectly. I thoroughly enjoyed Ginger’s chapters. 

To add onto that, I also LOVED the way Dayna Lorentz wrote from the doctor’s perspective. I mean, we really got the bang for our buck with this installment! 

Relevant to the doctor’s storyline, this book also introduced a new factor to the quarantine: a variant flu strain. Supposedly, there hadn’t been a new case of the “StoneCliff Flu” (as they’d been calling the original strain) in a few days. Now, there was a new flu, one that seemed to be directly targeting teenagers. Because of this, officials inside the mall ordered all healthy adults or children under 12 to return to Homemart, while the rest of them, the teens, were forced to fend for themselves in the halls and storerooms. 

Obviously this type of seclusion is a bad decision. Teens—more specifically, Marco and his gang—start coming to extreme conclusions about why the teenagers have been locked out. See, up until this point, the teens have been nothing but a burden to the mall officials, so obviously, Marco’s group of teens start a conspiracy theory that the government and doctors in the mall have created this new flu strain themselves, just to kill them, the problem kids, off. As a result, the kids devise a plan. A bad one.

And then, finally, we get the perspective of the mall’s Head Doctor, who proves the teen’s theory wrong: the doctors did not create the flu. In fact, the Head Doctor is working day and night trying to figure out the cause of the new variant. We see him debate inside his head why kids who have been completely exposed to the virus, who, as he so rawly and authentically puts it, “Carrying in their dying friends,” have not been impacted by this virus. As he’s looking through medical records for patterns, for answers, he realizes that things may not be as they seem. (As per most things in the mall.) He, in an utterly suspenseful moment before one of Marco’s goons shoot him and the last remaining doctors dead, figures out that the new mutated flu is not a new mutation at all. In fact, it is just that year’s flu strain, and the fully exposed, but healthy teenagers, are the ones who had received that year’s flu shot. 

Mere seconds before the doctor dies, he administers the flu cure in Shay and hides this new information in her bed sheets. 

See, Shaila had spent the beginning of the book coming down with the mutated flu herself, and she’d been in the med center trying to heal from it. 

After the death of the doctor, this leads to a frightening scene in which she wakes up in the med center, in the dark, courtesy to Marco, who’d blown the entire mall’s power. She feels a wet pillow behind her head and makes the startling discovery that the mall’s ice skating rink, the one that was holding the thousands of flu victim’s dead bodies, is above her and leaking a water/blood mixture because of the power outage. This imagery that the author describes: it made reading the trilogy worth it. Hands down my favorite scene. Because how utterly awful to realize that? To understand that not only are you surrounded by dead doctors, but also, the entire ceiling above you is about to collapse and rain more dead bodies on you?

Gruesome. Upsetting. Thrilling. 

In this book, Shaila’s chapters were exhilarating to read.

On the contrary, Marco’s chapters couldn’t really be properly enjoyed because:

A: He hardly had any until the end.

And 

B: He seemed to have lost all humanity and dignity. 

It made total sense—a character losing themselves during an event like this. But that didn’t make it any less sad. I mean, he was an insane and complex character to read about. At this point in the book, I couldn’t even put myself in his shoes because his shoes were so astronomically far from anything I would ever wear! Everytime we did get a POV from him, it felt awful, watching him destroy his entire future for the sake of survival. Especially because Ryan, in this book, is doing so damn good for someone living in a dark, bloody mall. 

Oh, and bloody it is. 

Maddie, (spoiler alert!) dies. And it’s terrible. Truly, it was just as upsetting to read about as the ice skating rink explanation. Ginger, in a final attempt to redeem her character of her fearful, running-away-from-problems, stoic qualities, and save Maddie from an asthma attack, smashes a man to death with a metal filing cabinet to obtain his oxygen mask. That asthma attack, by the way, is caused by a fire Shaila starts. And alas, it was too late for Maddie, and Ginger killed a man for nothing.

Some time after this, Ginger actually ends up working with Shaila. 

Which leads me back to Marco: sweet, caring, used, bullied, angry, murderer, bully Marco. His team captures Shay and Ginger and gives them to Marco to deal with. In the room with Marco, Shay and Ginger weigh the pros and cons of Marco letting them go. When he asks how their escape would benefit HIM, Shay tells him that she’d grabbed a vial of the flu’s cure from the med center. This awakens something in Marco. Suddenly, the perspective, for the first time in many chapters, is his, and it starts with action: him taking the cure and running downstairs, running through halls, and through the parking garage. With the cure in hand, he opens a car door. Surprise, surprise, Lexi returns. 

Lexi is sick with the flu because of Drew’s chicken mouth kiss—and she’s barely breathing. But Marco’s determined. In a devastatingly written scene, Marco administers the cure in her and his entire character starts to fold. He speaks to the reader, and then to Lexi. He breaks the fourth wall. He starts pretty manipulative, pretty bully-like. Then, throughout the breakdown, he unravels. He rambles about how he’s actually feeling. How he’s sorry. How he knows she’d never have done what he felt he had to do to survive. 

In a final testament to his original self, he actually goes back and helps Shay, forgetting his anger towards her. He even works with Ryan. They all spend their final moments in the mall helping the sick get away from the spreading fire. 

The few moments inside the mall before they escape are spent still in Marco’s point of view. He’s in the parking garage. He hears a bomb. The ceiling caves in. There’s light. For the first time in a week, they see light. For the first time in a month, they see real sunlight. 

In the light, Marco can see everything, everyone. All the destruction. The bodies. Two teenagers in a fighting pose now conversing about how blue the sky is. Finally, he sees Mike. With a gun to his head. He, to save his life from any more destruction, rushes over and takes Mike’s last bullet for him. 

Then: They’re freed. 

The final installment of this series is breathtaking. The detail and imagery is great. Devastating, even. It is complex and it is REAL. It is a great finale to a not-so-great trilogy. The epilogue was good, too. Mike goes to a mental hospital. Shay and Ryan reunite and happily establish an official relationship. Ginger leads Maddie’s funeral, and Marco and Lexi have a final goodbye as she goes on a date with her new boyfriend. Marco even ends the trilogy by reestablishing the idea of Goodness. 

These books are a monument to human nature. The complexity, the destruction, the survival aspect, the love and the good. With character arcs like Ginger, deaths like Maddies, and intricate displays of teenagehood from Marco, it proved the trilogy worth reading. I truly was enthralled with the book. It just took two “Eh” books to get there. 

So, should you read it? I’m going to be honest. I’m not sure. I think that I would say yes. Though organization is not consistently the best, and there definitely are flaws, seeing the characters progress and regress, imagining the vivid scenery of the mall, and reading surprise perspectives like The Senator’s or The Doctors—that all made it worth it. No Safety In Numbers is a trilogy that, though reviewed comparatively and written inconsistently, was pretty okay. Hopefully these pages prove it.