Book review: Tomorrow Girls: Run for Cover by Eva Gray

Tomorrow Girls: Run for Cover by Eva Gray (Published by Scholastic, July 1, 2011)

Rosie, Evelyn, Louisa, and Maddie are four young teenage girls who were sent to a remote boarding school to keep them safe from the war. But the girls discovered a terrible secret - their boarding school was run by the enemy, the Alliance, who tricked parents into sending their children there to be used as hostages - and decided to escape.

This book picks up right where book one, Behind the Gates, left off, as the girls decide to try and find their way to Chicago to reunite with their parents and expose the truth about the school. Shortly after, they run into three boys from the nearby boys' boarding school, who are away from the school on a camping trip and who decide to join them after learning the truth about their schools. This time the narrator is Rosie, who has a secret - she knows all about being on the run, because her wealthy parents arranged for their illegal immigration to the United States after their home in Mexico was destroyed. She takes on the job of leading the group, but can she bring them to safety, especially when they find themselves trapped in Alliance-occupied Canada?

While I enjoyed the continuing story of the four girls, and will definitely read the final two books to find out how the story concludes, I had the same problem with this book as I did with book one. There's no information at all about who the Alliance is and what caused the war, just that it happened after life had already changed in the United States due to climate change and natural disasters. I'm still hoping the other books in the series will have an explanation, despite this being a middle grade book I think there should be something more than just "There's a war with bad people on the other side." I think this series would still be a good choice for younger readers who are interested in the popular dystopian genre but not ready for young adult books, and even for older readers who want a quick read. I just wish the background of the story had been a bit more detailed.