Revolver »

REVOLVER is a tale of two worlds, and how the both test a man to his limits...

Almost thirty and living in Seattle, Sam shuffles to his bed after a night out at the bars. The next morning he wakes up and catches the bus into the city, starting another day of his dead end life. But today on the radio he hears that the stock market has crashed, news of a bird-flu epidemic erupting in Asia pushes past a report of "radioactive-material-gone-missing-in-Russia." Did Sam really wake up this morning? The world has gone crazy--turned on its head. Sam thinks about riding the bus full loop, going home and pretending that the day hadn't started.

This terrible day is capped with the destruction of Seattle...

But when Sam wakes up in his small studio apartment the next morning he's confused. On the bus ride to work he listens to the radio. The world is fine...

Realities begin to bleed into one another as Sam jumps between his dull-drum, everyday life and a dark apocalyptic society...but which is the real one and which one will he have to live with forever? And the most important question: does he have a choice?

From the Hardcover edition.

School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up—Sam goes to bed after another boring and predictable day, only to discover when he wakes up that the world has changed. It is suddenly beset by disasters including an outbreak of avian flu and a rapidly escalating war. These events begin to change the characters in a "desperate times call for desperate measures" kind of way, and Sam finds himself doing things he would never have guessed. If this plot device had been the main core of this book, it would have been a good read. But what turns it into an astounding read is that when Sam wakes up the next day he finds himself back in his ordinary world where he leads a humdrum existence and his girlfriend doesn't understand him. Then the next day he's back in the postapocalyptic world where Seattle has been destroyed and Sam's sexual tension with his boss is escalating. Each day he alternates between these two worlds, where some things are completely different and others are the same. Sam soon realizes that he is one of several constants between the two worlds, and he embarks on a dangerous journey to try to save humanity and change both worlds for the better. Kindt's artwork is dark and gritty, simplistic at times but able to convey a range of emotions. The cover image is especially effective at grabbing prospective readers' attention. Teens who give this book a try will be richly rewarded with a very unusual story.—Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library