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Ellen Oh delivers this spooky middle grade novel about the friendship between a Korean American boy and his dog, Haru—who becomes a zombie! Eleven-year-old Luke and his dog, Haru, are the best of friends. Totally inseparable. But when their nasty landlord falsely accuses Haru of biting her, Haru is kidnapped! As Luke and his friends go on a serious mission to find and bring Haru home again, they discover mysterious experiments happening at the old laboratory at Painted Lake, owned by an evil multibillionaire named Mr. Thomas Sinclair. And Luke and his friends soon fear that Sinclair’s scientists could be doing illegal testing that may endanger Haru and their whole town. As more strange clues emerge, the boys realize their world is changing fast, and soon Painted Lake is plagued by zombie attacks. But the love between Luke and Haru endures, ultimately helping to save them all.
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2.5 Cover 4; Characters 2; Plot 2; Pace 2; Engagement 3; Readability 4; Theme 3; Worldbuilding 2; Enjoyment 2
This was a huge disappointment for me. I have LOVED Ellen's books in the past but this left so much to be desired.
This was so short it felt more like a short-story than a novel. The story wasn't very fleshed out, the characters were not good, and the ending was basically non-existent. I think that young kids will have a hard time staying interested in this story because the bulk of it is traumatic - a racist woman stealing a kids dog away and sending him away to be tortured and you see lots of animal torture and death. Like.... it was not a good time.
I grasp the concept that theme wise this felt like it was meant to A) show kids that there are different power structures outside of their home and B) being loyal to your family trumps everything else. But it just was not it. Haru gets sent away for "attacking" the land lady when she physically slaps a young boy who Haru is protecting. The police are just like "Welp, the dog has to go to the pound." but no one is going to do anything about a grown ass adult woman physically abusing a child? Ok then.
I think this needed a huge read-over with some fleshing out and another editing pass to make it more appealing to the demographic.
I received an eARC of this book via Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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