by Richard Leigh

Created on: September 22, 2008

"Running out of Time" is a fantastic 1995 novel written by the author Margaret Peterson Haddix. In 2004 the hit M. Night Shyamalan movie "The Village" sparked great controversy when it seemed as though some of the films main ideas may have been taken from this novel. There are definite similarities between the two, and if you have seen the film and also read the book then you will most certainly have noticed this.

The book is about a 13 year old girl named Jessie Keyser. She lives an 1840s lifestyle in the small village of Clifton, Indiana. She is one day informed by her mother that the year is actually 1996 and that the village is actually a tourist attraction and replica of a historical village. There's a deadly disease going around and Jessie is asked by her mother to leave the village in order to try and find a cure.

Jessie finds it very hard to adapt to the lifestyle of the modern world, up until this point in her life she has been living an 1840s style lifestyle and knows not about items such as telephones, computers, and the way in which they work. It's a culture shock for Jessie, she's trying to explain to others around her about the illness that has hit the village but she is also currently battling with the disease herself and becoming very weak. She has to overcome the hurdles of coping with technologies that she has never before seen, it's a strange situation for Jessie to be in but ultimately she is successful in getting the word out about the disease that has hit the village.

Becoming weaker all the time, Jessie faints and when she awakens she is now laying in a hospital bed. It turns out that founder of the village Miles Clifton had been purposely infecting the community with disease in order to create a strengthened gene pool through separating the weak from the strong. Whilst Jessie has been successful in getting the word out there and Miles has been found out; it's sadly not all positive news. Several of the villagers have died and it was therefore not quickly enough that Jessie managed to inform all about what was going on here.

The Margaret Peterson Haddix "Running out of Time" novel is targeted at young adults aged around 12-20, in truth however the novel could easily be read and enjoyed by readers of any age. If you enjoy fiction stories that are not too farfetched then this could well be a book for you; it's one of those books where as you read it you start to feel that in real life this probably wouldn't happen, but at the same time it realistically could. It's an intriguing novel and always the author here has your full undivided attention. The plot progression is strong, and as I say; this is one that all can enjoy, whether young, old, or somewhere in between. "Running out of Time" is a fine fiction book which possesses an excellent plot and I'm sure that all those that read this will most definitely be entirely enthralled.

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