In this young adult thriller for fans of Lost and The Twilight Zone, a group of teens are saved when they come across a mysterious oasis. But who will save them from the oasis? Alif had exciting summer plans: working on her father’s archeological dig site in the desert with four close friends … and a very cute research assistant. Then the sandstorm hit. Their camp wiped away, Alif and the … Their camp wiped away, Alif and the others find themselves lost on the sands, seemingly doomed … until they find the oasis. It has everything they need: food, water, and shade–and mysterious ruins that hide a deadly secret. As reality begins to shift around them, they question what’s real and what’s a mirage.
The answers turn Alif and her friends against each other, and they begin to wonder if they’ve truly been saved. And while it was easy to walk into the oasis, it may be impossible to leave …
An Imprint Book
“Will stick to readers’ skin long after the final page is turned.” —Booklist (starred review)
“de Becerra successfully builds a fraught tension throughout the book that mirrors the characters’ feelings as reality leaves them behind . . . well worth the payoff.” —The Bulletin
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After reading What the Woods Keep by the author, I knew I had to get my hands on Oasis. The summary along with the cover had me absolutely intrigued. And did somebody say desert? My, my, yes they did!
Alif was the perfect protagonist because she was imperfect and you loved her, and you wanted to ask her what she was doing at times, and you were right there along with her wanting to know what was going on in this desert! And Tommy! Swoon! I loved him! Inside the oasis, Alif and her five friends encounter things where it makes them hard to trust each other, where it breaks them apart, where it creates new bonds, and it utterly had my pulse accelerating.
Now, let’s get down to this desert business! It was magically eerie and creepy with a side of amazingly weird. There is mystery, and worry, and at times I wondered, is this even real? I could definitely see this on and episode of the Twilight Zone—the old ones that were awesome!
And seriously, this needs to be made into a movie! ASAP! The writing was addicting and the story an intense page turner! I can’t wait to see what book the author comes up with next! Oh, and genre-bending books are the best!
What a weird novel, and not a thoroughly entertaining one.
From the beginning, the biggest issue this novel has is character dynamics. What is wrong is the fact that Alif spends part of her narrative telling the reader how they are the greatest of friends. Except that does not come across at all, which is a huge problem. The reader is supposed to believe that the desert is turning these friends against one another. The moment Becerra introduces the reader to the characters, it is hard to see how they fit together. They are antagonistic with one another, and Alif is very aloof concerning them. She seems not to care what they do or what she even does. Her tone, her personality, it is very bland and does not encourage the reader to believe her. Alif is an unreliable narrator as far as the storytelling goes.
These are not characters worth caring about at the end of the day, and not at one point do they seem like they are the best of friends the author would have the reader believe.
Now, while the dynamics and characterization fall short, that is not to say there is no development. Through the trials of the oasis, the reader sees the characters pushed to their limits.
The saving grace of the novel is the tension. The eerie feeling that follows the reader through the story keeps the tension up; it keeps the reader invested in the story and the evolution of the plot. While Becerra fails with the characterization and dynamics, she excels at creating a spooky atmosphere. It puts the reader on edge, and it keeps them there.
Oasis is a strange novel that is not worth the read regarding the characters, but completely worth it for the eerie atmosphere and gripping tension.
I’ve been intrigued for this one since I first saw it. And overall I really enjoyed the book. In the end it had the kind of vague/not definite ending that while can be okay, and I know a lot of people like, I’m not the hugest fan of. I kind of like my endings tied up in little bows as much as possible. Or at least to know what happened. But the whole story up to that point was so good that I could barely put it down. I loved the dig site parts, and the friendships and tension between the group was well done also. There were some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming, and that is something that I do really like in a story. It was good to get the back stories of some of the characters to understand their motivation, but I do feel like we needed more about one of them, Luke, and maybe also Minh. The oasis itself was fascinating and how the author described it was very vivid and kept you guessing at what was next. The possible alien/ancient god aspect was a little iffy for me, I almost needed a little more of that. I had a hard time deciding what to rate this. I wavered between a 3.5 and 4 star rating. In the end I am giving this 4 stars, because what happened at the end may just be a personal issue that I had, and I can see that a lot of other people might enjoy that, and it was very well written, and had a lot that kept me turning pages as fast as I could hoping to find out all the answers.