Daylight Saving

November 1, 2012

Gr 8 Up-Daniel's father dragged him to Leisure World for a little holiday-something to do after Daniel caught his mom cheating. The sports-averse teen would rather be anywhere else, until he meets beautiful, smart, and troubled Lexi. She has injuries that seem to get worse every day, and she won't talk about them. Lexi finally has to tell Daniel what's going on when he gets caught in her same time loop: two years ago, she was dragged into the woods and killed; now she lives each year in reverse until that one daylight-saving hour when the clocks get turned back and she relives her attack. The book succeeds in being creepy and atmospheric, and while several plot elements are easily predicted, Hogan still builds suspense and anticipation. Background characters, such as Daniel's father and their neighbors, are full people with their own issues. There are some gory descriptions of Lexi's wounds and the book has some scare potential, but nothing that average readers can't handle.Brandy Danner, Wilmington Memorial Library, MA

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2012
A teen spends a harrowing week at an English holiday sports complex, where he befriends the ghost of a young woman doomed to repeat the last brutal hours of her life. Since Daniel's mother moved out, his father's been drinking and depressed. Daniel feels responsible for the breakup because his father forced him to admit he accidentally saw his mother kissing another man. Daniel's overweight, classmates bully him, and he hates sports, so when his father takes him to a sports center for a week, he expects the worst. While his father resorts to alcohol, Daniel meets a mysterious girl swimming in the lake. Wearing a watch that ticks backward, Lexi's covered with cuts and bruises, invisible to everyone but Daniel and definitely peculiar. He discovers she's a ghost, murdered during the hour the clocks turned back to end daylight saving time two years before. On the anniversary of her death, she relives the terrible ordeal. Determined to break the cycle and release Lexi's ghost, Daniel finds the courage "to touch someone and then let them go" as the fatal hour approaches. Lexi's appropriately quirky and enigmatic, while Daniel's a vulnerable, likable (but unlikely) hero, whose confidence grows through his sympathetic, quasi-romantic encounter; his first-person narration adds immediacy and resonance. An intriguing ghost story. (Ghost story. 12 & up)

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November 1, 2012
Grades 7-10 When Daniel first meets Lexi at Leisure World, a faux-wilderness vacation complex his dad has dragged him to, he is attracted to her droll, spirited disposition. She is a bright spot in his miserable life now that his mom has split and his dad has started drinking. But something is off: Lexi's ghastly wounds multiply overnight and her watch runs backward. When Daniel starts receiving unexplainable injuries and seeing an ominous man in a bloody suit, he learns that Lexi was killed years ago during the end of daylight saving time. She and her killer are trapped in that extra hour, reenacting the murderand so is Daniel. If this time twisting sounds baffling, it is, but it's also fascinating. Hogan not only delivers chills galore but also creates empathy for his cast of vulnerable, idiosyncratic people with their own desires to change the past. The disturbing undertone to the plastic fun of Leisure World provides a nice atmospheric counterpart for this unusual ghost story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2013
Daniel's tale is a sturdy coming-of-age narrative; the unpopular, unhappy boy grows closer to his lovelorn father and begins a tentative flirtation with a mysterious girl while gaining confidence and self-esteem. However, there is also a growing sense of apprehension throughout the novel. The strength of Hogan's complexly drawn relationships grounds readers in this unique and eerie sort-of ghost story.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2012
After catching his mum in an affair, Daniel is less than enthusiastic about vacationing with his lovelorn father, especially at Leisure World -- a tacky sports resort for unadventurous outdoorsy types. A mysterious girl named Lexi distracts Daniel from his father's sloppy emotional recovery and from his own guilt. But Lexi is a puzzle to Daniel: her watch ticks backward, her skin shows wounds that worsen by the day, and she refuses to answer any questions about herself. Is she is a real person, a ghost, or a figment of Daniel's imagination? When Daniel, too, begins to suffer inexplicable injuries, he endeavors to discover Lexi's secrets in order to save them both. Daniel's tale is a sturdy coming-of-age narrative; the unpopular, unhappy boy grows closer to his father and begins a tentative flirtation with Lexi while gaining confidence and increasing self-esteem. However, there is also a growing sense of apprehension throughout the novel as the threat against the main characters slowly comes into view. The story's Leisure World setting -- a commercialized faux-wilderness -- effectively accentuates Daniel's difficulty in distinguishing between reality and fantasy until his worst fears about Lexi's fate are confirmed. The strength of Hogan's complexly drawn relationships grounds readers in this unique and eerie sort-of ghost story. jessica tackett

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)