Dark Eden

Dark Eden, by Patrick Carmen, is a dark and haunting tale about fears and what lengths people will go through to cure them. 
    Will Besting can't go to school.  He can't be near crowds.  He doesn't have any friends.  He has gone to therapy for over two years, a total of over 150 sessions.  And while he's at his therapy sessions he steals his therapist's files. 
     When his therapist and his parents decide to send him to summer camp for a week, Will knows something's whacked.  Sent to live in isolation with six other kids who have irrational fears, Will ekes it out on his own, afraid to be near them and afraid of his summer camp.  And he has every reason to:  When it comes time for his fears to be 'cured' Will discovers something about himself and his family that has the potential to ruin him. And Will's brain is not the only one telling lies and creating illusions . . .

This book is extremely haunting and creepy, but deliciously so.  I don't believe I did the plot of the book justice with my pitiful explanation, and I might've given away more of the ending than I should've.  I'm sorry. 
      There are some things about the book that don't make sense and that aren't explained, but you come to accept that as part of the mystery of the setting.  It is a sci-fi/fantasy book, with some things bordering on the edge of unbelievable and nearly magical. 
      The only characters you really get close to are Will, his brother Keith, and maybe Marisa, because Will won't let anyone else close to him.  Even then, you don't get to know Will as well as you would like to. It is told to you that he's scared of something, but you don't know what until past page 200.  You only see a few instances where that fear comes into play, and even then you don 't recognize it for what it is until it is pointed out to you. 
       Marisa's fear is not explained very well.  I think that was the point, for some of the book, but someone had to say it outright for me to get it.  Maybe I'm just dim, but I still don't understand what mushrooms had to do with the whole thing. 
        And I'll have just one more aside focused on one person:  Avery's fear is the real disarm-er.  Well, maybe it isn't her fear, exactly, it is what is comes after her fear.  You'll have to read the book to understand (   ;), but it is the creepy element to this story.
       All in all, this story is one that shook me to my bones.  It may not be "that fantastic story I will remember in 20 years from now", but its memory will resurface every time I am alone in the dark or see a spy movie where there is a wall of computer monitors and people are watching the torture of others on them.  And I am reconsidering the number seven as my lucky and favorite number. 
        I wish for the best for Will Besting and *ahem* victims, and I hope that they will find themselves more hunter than hunted in Dark Eden 2.  It's a dark and twisted world that Patrick Carmen has created, but a dark and twisted world I don't mind venturing into.