Synopsis (From Goodreads):

In small town Michigan, Penny, an aspiring journalist, teams up with the nerdy boy-next-door and the town’s star quarterback to find her conspiracy theorist father after he goes missing and several other townspeople turn up dead in the woods.

The deeper she digs, the weirder things start to get. Townspeople repeat the same phrases—verbatim. Men in black suits stroll around Main Street. Chunks of her memory go missing. Pretty soon, Penny’s research leads her to the long-ago meteorite crash in Bone Lake’s woods, and she’s going to have to reconsider her definition of “real” if she wants answers… .

Plot:

Penelope, who prefers the nickname Penny, lost faith in her father, Ike Hardjoy, at ten years old. When she used to believe all the fairy tales he told her, about werewolves, Nessie, fairies, all wandering around the woods waiting to be discovered. When hunting for Bigfoot, and found a black bear instead, her father used the blur out photos of the bear, claiming it to be Bigfoot. Losing the faith his daughter had in him during the process. Yet, that writing mindset never left Penny, and as she and her mother left Ike in Bone Lake Michigan for a life in Chicago, being a journalist is something Penny always wanted to do. When apply to university, Penny has the perfect article that will get her in: an in-depth study of the economic crash in Bone Lake Michigan after the plastic plant shut down due to a death. Everything cited, some quotes, fancy graphs show her data, Penny knew this would get her in. Yet there was one thing missing, a human element, something that would make readers feel for the Bone Lake citizens, and therefore gave Penny a reason to visit her father. From an interview to the elder residents who knew the plastic plant in its prime, to the younger ones who did not. Penny real goal was to interview Micah, her middle school crush, and whose father was Hal Jamison, the person who died that caused the plant to shut down. When her father fails to pick Penny up at the airport, she just assumes he left on a short camping trip to find another bear as Bigfoot. When days past and still no Ike, Penny began asking the townsfolk about the power plant getting the same response from everyone: “It’s best not to think so much about it” (41). No dad, creepy responses from the people who saw her grow up, Penny knew something was missing in this small town. With a shiny black car following her where she goes, Penny must become a true report and discover the truth about her tiny hick hometown.

Thoughts:

Lindsey Klingele wrote this sci-fi / monster mystery to be a bit of a thriller. With a prolog that captures the horror fans at heart, the book escalates quickly downhill from that. Penny is just a plain girl, who has nothing truly special going for her, besides what her dad does for a living. Diving into government secrets, this ‘Area 51 is where they hide the UFOs’ dad publishes his articles in the magazine Strange World. Since age 10, Penny has realized her father was a nut job, therefore the whole story was a coming-of-age, realizing maybe her father was onto something, and the world cannot be divided into a black and white category. Side story lines of the reason why her parents got divorced, why Reese hates her, best friend from childhood Dex turning into a cutie, gave the story more plot, and a bit of depth to Penny. When the light shine on the monster at the end, all ends are tied nicely up, Klingele gives this book a proper send off, and even broadens our minds to what is truly out there. After all, this planet, and even our solar system, is a very strange place to live.