Futureland: Battle for the Park - H.D. Hunter

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Rounding up from 3.75)

From the cover:

"Everyone wants a ticket to Futureland, the extraordinary flying park where you can literally live out your wildest dreams. Want to step inside your favorite video game? Go pro in a sports arena? Perform at a real live concert? Grab your ticket and come right in.

Yet with all its attractions, Futureland has always just been home to Cam Walker, the son of the park's famous creators. And when Futureland arrives at its latest stop, Atlanta, Cam is thrilled for what promises to be the biggest opening ever...

But things aren't quite right with the Atlanta opening. Park attractions are glitching. Kids start to go missing. And when his parents are blamed, Cam must find the missing kids and whoever's trying to take down his family...before it's too late."

This book had a lot of highs and lows for me. Overall, I found the premise and the actual adventure of it all very intriguing and engaging, and I really enjoyed the inclusion of comic panels and the interview transcripts. It gave me Illuminae vibes, and I almost wish those had been used a little bit more...not for storytelling purposes, just for my own enjoyment. I also thought some of the characters - Cam, Dooley, Angel, and Yusuf, primarily, were very vibrant and felt realistic. Other characters, particularly Cam's grandma and the bad guy, fell a little flat, especially in comparison to the three-dimensionality of most of the characters. 

With Cam's grandma, it seemed like even in situations where any rational person would have been concerned, her character fell back on "oh hell no, I'm not about that technology. Come on, I'm going to make you a home-cooked meal." It was fine when she was first introduced, but at a certain point it just stops making sense that she's so unwilling to engage with what Cam is saying when so much shady stuff is clearly going on. And the bad guy was just...so openly and obviously evil. I mean, fine, I guess, if that's what you're into, but given that this is meant to be a mystery, it made it a little hard to buy into everyone being unsure what was going on when there was no subtlety to the character at all. I know I'm an adult reading a middle grade book, but I kept thinking about how my students would engage with this, and from the moment the character was introduced there might as well have been a giant neon sign that said "NEMESIS" pointing to the antagonist. Isn't part of the fun in reading a mystery having to guess at who it might be?

My last gripe with the book was that the plot seemed so jumpy. The big reveals were solid, but it seemed like Hunter wasn't sure what to do with the in-between. It was like...gaaaaasp, this huge thing just happened! Oh my god, we need to get to the bottom of this, it is URGENT. Ah well, gotta go to school, I guess. <<fast forward>> gaaaaaasp, another huge thing! We all love big exciting moments, but I wish there had been more buildup and cohesion. Instead of the story beginning with Futureland's arrival in Atlanta and things immediately getting weird, we could have seen his family getting ready for the opening, and then as we started getting comfortable with the story, BAM, things start going wrong. Instead of BIG REVEAL - go to school/Grandma's house and get shut down - BIG REVEAL, a better flow with investigation and breaks in the case. 

All that said...it was a solid book, I think the different elements would be engaging for kids, and I give it points for not being super duper long. I think the one benefit to it jumping from action to action is that it grabs your interest and makes for a quick read. Plus, a mystery involving a futuristic amusement park featuring super advanced AI? Pretty cool.