Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman

In Full Tilt, by Neal Shusterman, Blake is a responsible sixteen-year-old who frequently denies a mysterious past. The teenager is constantly watching out for his thrill-seeking younger brother Quinn, but things get a little weird when a mysterious girl named Cassandra approaches Blake and his friends, Maggie and Russ, at a local fair. Cassandra hands Blake an invitation to a better roller-coaster park that Cassandra just so happens to own. Hesitant, Blake does not open the invitation but when Quinn’s curiosity gets the best of him, he opens the envelope and is suddenly hit with a coma. Not quite sure why Quinn fell into a coma when he opened the envelope, Blake notices there’s an address on the envelope and he gets Maggie and Russ into Blake’s car and the three venture out in hopes that they can uncover what exactly is going on.

The address leads the three to a wooded property and Blake speeds through the woods in frustration. Trying to dodge a tree, the car hurls off the side of a cliff. Miraculously, the teenagers survive and find themselves at the entrance to Cassandra’s theme park. At the gate, they expect to be given their ticket but they find that a symbol is imprinted on their hands and they scan the symbol in order to ride the rides. Blake immediately sets off through the park to find Quinn. When Blake sees his younger brother in line for a merry-go-round, Blake rushes over to join him. At first, the ride seems entirely safe. Then, the animals spring to life and the kids on the ride are hurled off the backs of the animals, tossed into a stampede of hooves and paws that crush the kids into the dirt. Blake and Quinn manage to be a part of the few who survive.

After the dust had cleared, Blake notices that objects in the park resemble the faces of the riders that had been on the deadly merry-go-round. Knowing that something’s up, he runs into Cassandra on the next ride which also is not what it seems. He asks her a couple of questions and discovers that once a person enters the park, if they don’t get through all seven rides before sunrise, they’ll be trapped in the park forever. Blake is suddenly thrust into a race for time, going up against seven of his deepest fears and even reliving a terrible incident from his childhood. All the while, Cassandra tries to convince him of plans to join her and rule the carnival with her for eternity. Blake turns the offer down numerous times because he determined to defeat the carnival before the carnival defeats him.

Over the years, teachers have recommended Full Tilt to my classes and I saw this blog as an opportunity to finally read it. The novel is full of action, mystery, and adventure and it tests the imagination of the reader. The reader is always wondering what the outcome of the exotic rides will be and when the novel is over, it leaves the reader thirsty for more. Full Tilt is definitely worth reading and the twist at the end leaves a decadent final thrill to the entire story.