Straight on 'Til Morning [Paperback]

In the first half of the book, we are introduced to Kevin Murphy, his brother Jessie, and their friends. They're typical carefree teengagers enjoying their summer. Kevin has a major crush on the girl next door Nikkie but he just can't bring himself to tell her. He loves the time they spend as friends and is hoping for something more. It all comes crashing down when she falls for this dark & mysterious older dude by the name of Pete Starling. Starling and his 3 buddies are troublemakers who are able to do inexplicable things(this is the part that reminds me of The Lost Boys). Starling and his thugs eventually kidnap Nikkie and bring her to "Neverland", an alternate world where few humans have ever ventured. Thus begins the second half of the book where Kevin, his brother and two friends embark on a mission to Neverland to save Nikkie. From now on, the book becomes a full-blown fantasy adventure complete with trolls, goblins, sea creatures and the like.

Straight on til' morning definitely entertains. Should you choose to read this, your eyes will be glued to the pages and you'll be turning them so quickly as to risk several papercuts(be careful!). Of course, there are some minor flaws. For one, this book seems to suffer of an identity crisis. Is it coming-of age, horror or fantasy? What is the intended audience? There came times where I felt I was reading a scholastic young-adult novel (like the author's Buffy books) and others where I felt I was reading something intended for an older audience. I also wish the author had decided to shift the story to Neverland earlier. We don't actually get there until past the midway point of the novel. But once we're there, whoa what a ride! If you're looking for good summer escapism, you'll definitely find what you're looking for through the pages of this fine novel.

What hurts Kevin the most is that Nikki has fallen for a boy that Kevin knows is extreme bad news. Peter Starling first ran into Kevin and his friends on a day in the woods. What started out as and idyllic party suddenly became a near nightmare, and Kevin will never forget Pete's menacing look. Suddenly Nikki is gone along with Peter - Kevin's last sight of her was as she flew across the sky with Peter and his cronies. Kevin's determination to save her will lead him and his close friends over a boundary that humans are not to pass, and suddenly the teenager's life is filled with horror.

Author Christopher Golden makes it clear in his author's note that this tale is a fantasy remembrance of a part of his childhood. We are left to decide which pieces are imagination and which were real, but the basic theme of love gained and then lost is universal to all possible worlds. Underneath the sometimes frightening and tragic written story is a sense of a deeper tragedy - that of decisions never made and opportunities lost. In the course of a short novel space summer ends and the cold of mid-winter suddenly begins.

Golden's writing is a combination of fact pacing and almost elegiac musings on the changing hare of a boy. I do not know of anything else he has written that has so much running just beneath the surface. Speaking non-technically, it is a moving, thought-provoking story, one that will remain in memory for a time. Technically, "Straight on 'til Morning" begins slowly. So much time is spent building the characters and setting the scene that it seems there is hardly the time to bring the story home. This is one case where I feel the book is just too short for what it attempts to do. But this is far better than being too long. This is still one of Golden's best effort, and is clearly a book he needed to write.

The book tells the story of 13 year old Kevin Murphy, whose day to day existence is disrupted by the entrace of Peter and Doug Starling and their friends. When you first meet this quartet of bad boys, they seem like nothing more than that, a bunch of teen-agers out looking for trouble. But when Pete and Nikki, Kevin's friend and unknowningly the object of his affections, we begin to see that there might be more to Peter Starling and company than meets the eye, because around them, as Kevin comments, impossible things always seem to happen. Kevin knows that Pete and his buddies are no good, as are most of the guys that Nikki has dated in the past, and Nikki has always been closed to whatever Kevin has to say until her heart is broken. But the frustrating part for Kevin is that he wants Nikki for himself, and he feels that if he tries to expose Pete for what he really is, while at the same time confessing his own true feelings for Nikki, she might think that that was his true motive for trying to break up her and Pete.

When Kevin is finally pressured by his friends and brother, it's literally too late. Nikki has been totally won over by Pete and, as wild as she had been in the past, has decided that he will be the one she will go all the way with for the first time. Kevin's timing is perfect, as they are interrupted before Nikki has the opportunity to make the mistake of a life time. But in the process, Kevin is beaten to the point of passing out by Doug and friends. As he awakens, the books leaps from reality into the realm of fantasy (it's about time), as Kevin hears "second to the right and straight on 'til morning." He sees five people flying past the moon, and one of them he knows is Nikki. Thus starts the real adventure, as Kevin persuades his brother and friends to go with him as they head off to Neverland to rescue Nikki.

How they get there and what happens there I will not reveal. As already mentioned, the book is well written, but I feel it took too long to get to the meat of the matter. You are half-way through the book before you get to Neverland, and the action that takes place there is over way too quickly. The book is full of believable characters, even in Neverland, where everything is magical, and there's even an unexpected surprise -- keep an eye on April as the book progresses. For me, the book would have been better if the trip to Neverland had come sooner, and the action that takes place there had lasted longer. It may not have been Golden's intention, but this concept could very easily have been drawn out to a number of books, a possible trilogy, almost a "Kevin's Adventures in Wonderland."