Nil Unlocked (Nil Series #2)

by Lynne Matson

Overview

On the island of Nil, the rules are set. You have exactly 365 days to escape--or you die. Rives is now the undisputed Leader of Nil City, but keeping the City united is tougher than ever.

Raiders have grown bolder, supplies are dwindling, and non-human inhabitants have taken a turn toward the deadly. New arrivals cause rifts within the City, putting the Search system at risk, and calling everything Rives knows into question. Desperate for answers, he teams up with the only other person searching for them: Skye, a new arrival with a mysterious past of her own. Soon the duo find themselves locked in a desperate race to save all the residents of Nil--and possibly destroy the island forever. But at what cost? And who will pay the price?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781627794848
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	05/12/2015
Series:	Nil Series , #2
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	229,095
Lexile:	HL560L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Lynne Matson grew up in Georgia in a house full of books and a backyard full of gnarly pines. She attended the University of Florida, where she met and married her husband, the cutest boy she's ever seen. Now, Lynne is mother to four amazing boys. A former attorney, she is thrilled to be making a new career in YA fiction.

Lynne Matson grew up in Georgia in a house full of books and a backyard full of gnarly pines. She attended the University of Florida, where she met and married her husband, the cutest boy she's ever seen. Now, Lynne is mother to four amazing boys. After a career as an attorney, Lynne is thrilled to be making her debut in YA fiction with Nil.

Read an Excerpt

It couldn't be a coincidence. Nothing here was a coincidence.
 
Thad had always viewed the island as a person, as a living breathing entity hell-bent on making our lives miserable and playing with us every step of the way. On the other hand, most people, like Charley and Jillian, just viewed the island as a hunk of rock, a place that existed where it shouldn't.
 
My view of Nil hung somewhere in the middle. More than a rock, possibly sentient. But evil? Intent on misery? I wasn't sure, but my gut said no. Something told me that Nil was as alive as we were, or at least the force that brought us here was. Macy and I had had many a late night conversation about the reason we were here, and it didn't feel random, not to me. And it also didn't feel evil.
 
Harsh? Yeah.
 
Cruel? Absolutely. But not always, because the island had definite moments of benevolence—although each island kindness I viewed with suspicion. Because if I had to pick one word to descibe Nil, I wouldn't pick evil. I'd pick calculating.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Nil:

From the Publisher

Nil is a page-turner and compulsively readable. Lynne Matson has created a winning story with the perfect mix of edge-of-your-seat suspense, romance, humor.

author of the Jenna Fox Chronicles Mary E. Pearson

Like Survivor with a body count. Nil is an addicting, fast-paced, thrill of a ride.

author of Pivot Point Kasie West

03/01/2015
Gr 9 Up—Rives watches as his close friends Charley and Thad disappear, hopefully to safety. Every teenager deposited unwillingly on the island of Nil needs to catch an unpredictable outbound "gate" (shimmering wall of hot air) within a year of their arrival, or they will die. Now, Rives is Leader and feels the weight of responsibility. Skye's father's obsession with finding Nil started when his twin, Scott, was taken and then died not long after his return. When Skye meets Charley back in the United States and hears Charley's story, she knows Nil is real. Skye and her father travel to the South Pacific, where he suspects the island is located. When Skye irrationally follows a native boy through a gate, she, too, ends up on Nil. Skye and Rives are determined to unlock Nil's secret, lead a mass exodus from the nightmare, and maybe, take down the island altogether. Readers starting with this book will feel a little lost and cheated to have missed Charley and Thad's story in Nil (Holt, 2014). However, Rives and Skye's narratives will ensnare readers quickly. The island setting is akin to William Golding's Lord of the Flies, but the story of teens working together to escape will appeal to fans of James Dashner's The Maze Runner (Delacorte, 2009). VERDICT A must-have for fans of the first installment, but sufficiently interesting enough to draw in new readers.—Kelly Jo Lasher, Middle Township High School, Cape May Court House, NJ

School Library Journal

2015-02-03
Following Nil (2014), Rives falls for a new girl who holds the key to salvation from the alternate-dimension island.Skye arrives on Nil fully informed of the rules: Traveling portals called gates, some inbound and others outbound, appear every day at noon; teens thus deposited on Nil have one year to catch an outbound gate, and if they don't, they die. She knows this because her uncle escaped Nil and wrote a journal that has prompted her father's obsessive search for the island—and his training of Skye. They search for it among the Pacific Islands, where Skye secretly follows a local boy toward islands Skye and her father have been explicitly warned away from, naturally finding a gate. Meanwhile, Nil City leader Rives struggles to keep his people alive. The romance—new girl brings hope and hunky boy leads—is outwardly similar to Nil, but it's better integrated with the story, which is also more smoothly paced than its predecessor. They discover that the islanders use Nil in coming-of-age rituals. Even though the xenophobic islanders keep Nil's stationary outbound portals a cultural secret from kids stolen from other parts of the globe (many of whom die), Skye's sensitively apologetic for even asking. While Skye might be too close to perfect for some readers, she's a good match for Rives, and they work together to a conclusion that leaves readers with the barest of loose ends. A fast, tense gift for readers wanting to return to Nil. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews