Title: The Age of Amy: Behind the Fun Zone
Author: Bruce Edwards
Genre: YA Fiction
Age Group: Young Adult
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
Are you a Jimmiehead, or are you still using one of those old-fashioned smartphones?
Jimmies are tiny microchips, that when painlessly implanted into your brain, magically transform your eyes and ears into the ultimate hands-free device. No more fumbling with fragile phones, loose earbuds, or clumsy controllers. Watch movies without looking at a screen. Take photos through your eyes. Text with your brain waves.
Everyone wants a Jimmie—except 16-year-old Amy, who detests technology in any form. But when thousands of teenage Jimmieheads mysteriously vanish, only she can save them. Immune to Jimmie’s influence, Amy embarks on a quest to find the missing teens, ultimately revealing an ominous connection to a spooky, old amusement park that’s been dark for 50 years!
After reading and review the two previous books in this series, The Age of Amy: The Thumper Amendment and The Age of Amy: Channel ’63, I was looking forward to reading The Age of Amy: Behind the Fun Zone, especially when I read the premise.
Jimmies are tiny microchips implanted in people’s brains that transform their eyes and ears into a hands-free device, allowing them to text with a brain wave, watch movies without needing a screen, and so on. What an interesting concept for a story. I’m always amazed by Bruce Edwards’ creativity and originality. Anyway, everyone seems to want a Jimmie, except for Amy. She’s always been a little different, and she doesn’t like technology at all, so a chip in her brain? No thanks. But when thousands of teenagers disappear, all of them having had one of those brain chips – the Jimmies – implanted, Amy goes on a quest to find them. This quest leads her to an abandoned amusement park, and to a mystery she can’t wait to solve.
I loved Amy. She’s a great character – interesting, resourceful, intelligent, witty, and the more I get to know her and the more I read about her adventures, the more I like her. The secondary characters were engaging too, but it’s the plot that really made me love this book. The Jimmies are awesome. I’ve never read a book with this kind of plot before. And then the abandoned amusement park. One of my dreams is to explore an abandoned amusement park one day, and when reading about Amy’s adventures there, I felt like I was right there with her.
This series continues to explore great plots, while also making sure the characters, especially Amy, evolves in every book. An excellent read that I would recommend to all YA fans, especially if you like a mystery to solve.
