Dark Energy

by Robison Wells
Hennepin County Library hardcover 276 pages
genre: YA SciFi

This was fairly fluffy, but kept my attention. I liked that it was set in Minnesota (Lakeville, where the spaceship landed, and Minnetonka at a snooty private school). Alice's dad is in charge of NASA's "special projects" team and he relocates from Florida to the crash site, enrolling Aly in the Minnetonka school to be nearby while he works.

The aliens from the ship, the friendships at the school, and her maternal grandmother on the reservation in New Mexico . . . interesting story but not especially memorable. I could easily see a sequel.

Rachel, Brynne, Kurt, Coya, Suski . . . and the Masters. Interesting notes at the end about the Ancestral Puebloans / Anasazi.

page 166 - When Rachel asked about the Anasazi. "They're a tribe that was huge in the Four Corners area from about the seventh century to the fourteenth. It's kind of amazing how we don't know all about them here in America - they were huge." So true! We know so little of our own history.

page 186 - ". . . I pledged that I would learn the art of foos and return to crush him." This made me laugh! The romance between Alice and Kurt was understated and sweet.