Doomed

Deebs (Tempest Rising) offers an action-heavy contemporary retelling of the Pandora myth with a virtual gaming twist, but few ties to the original story. Despite some parental neglect, Pandora is an otherwise typical teenage girl, concerned with school, social media, and particularly the online game Pandora's Box. When she opens a series of emailed pictures from her estranged father, she ends up releasing a computer worm that could potentially destroy the world's infrastructure. Pandora, along with two handsome stepbrothers (one a popular jock, the other a brooding outsider), enters the game as an avatar in an effort to set things right. Deebs's story unfolds at breakneck speed, yet characters are only loosely drawn; even Pandora is defined primarily by her anger at her mother and father and by her romantic conflicts. The exploration of human dependence on technology adds tension (readers will empathize with panicked characters once technological resources become unavailable), but the eventual denouement and revelation of the villain's motivations are unsurprising. Ages 12%E2%80%93up. Agent: Emily Sylvan Kim, Prospect Agency. (Jan.)