Martha
My daughters & I guessed the major plot twist very, very early, but it still didn't hurt our enjoyment of the book. In fact, I spent most of the book admiring the double-sided nature of things, how if you don't know the twist, such & such an action or word seems to say thus, but if you do know, it instead says something else entirely.
I don't think this is realistic. Not because of the volcano, but because I don't think society would fall apart that badly quite that quickly. I also didn't enjoy having so many bad things happening, whether or not it's realistic (some content not appropriate for all readers).
If you want to read something better on the same subject, try The Memory Boy/The Survivors series.
I won this book on Goodreads, but was not reimbursed in any way for this review, except for getting to keep the book.
I liked the concept of this book (boy who can't recognize faces is eyewitness to his friend's murder), but I have to admit to being a bit nervous about whether or not it would be written in a believable way, particularly since most eyewitnesses in mysteries tend to rely on a lot of visual clues. I've read a fair number of mysteries, but I think this is the first one where the detective already knows he can never trust his own eyes.
Despite my doubts, I really enjoyed the story, right from the start. It was well-written (although the quotation marks were occasionally poorly edited) and entertaining. The clues came at a good pace & were generally both understandable & believable. Most of the characters were authentic enough to forget they were in a book. I sympathized with David even when I thought he was being stupid (standard omniscient-reader-recognized stupidity).
On the minus side, it has more adolescent angst & bad language/situations than I enjoy, but I guess that's normal in many places. I'm also not sure that a few of the characters would act quite that way (cop was too single-minded then suddenly reversed, murderer was too easy-going, certain girl had no brains at all). The action scene at the end dragged on too long. As faults go, however, they are easy to forgive.
Don't take the three stars to be a slight–it really does mean I liked the book. Enjoy!
