Holds Alert: DO NOT BECOME ALARMED
Reviews are coming in for a book featured in many summer previews and showing heavy holds in many libraries, Maile Meloy’s Do Not Become Alarmed (PRH/Riverhead; RH Large Print; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). Some are shockingly negative for such a heavily anticipated title.
Author Charles Finch provides the most unequivocal in his review for The Washington Post headlined, “Maile Meloy’s Do Not Become Alarmed: This summer’s big literary novel?” His answer is definitely no, writing “the book is essentially a write-off. To begin with, it’s a thriller without thrills.”
The NYT daily review Dwight Garner largely agrees, writing “It’s an earnest and surprisingly generic children-in-jeopardy novel, one that makes few demands on us and doesn’t deliver much, either.”
On the other hand, Entertainment Weekly must have read a different book, calling it a “taut, nervy thriller” and giving it a B+. The magazine also listed it as one of the “Summer’s 20 Must-Read Books,” writing “Every parent’s nightmare comes true in Meloy’s literary page-turner.”