How Does Margaret Peterson Haddix Create A Sense Of Suspense

As a maturing writer, one must evaluate literature to realize how to fully comprehend one's own writing and many other pieces of written works. The suspenseful and mysterious novel, Among the Imposters, by Margaret Peterson Haddix, presents a story imploring to be evaluated. In the novel, a young boy, Luke, has been locked away from the world as an illegal third child, he finds his opening to freedom when a deceased companion's father offers him a new identity. Readers will follow Luke on his unforgiving yet hopeful journey, as he attends his new school as a legal child. Readers will then learn the secrets to the government's prejudiced ways. The novel proves to be a success through its incredible ability to include suspense, useful and comprehensive

In addition to the suspense, Margaret Peterson Haddix brings wonderful and descriptive figurative language that readers are completely capable to understand. Haddix uses a variety of similes, flashback, hyperboles, analogies and many other types of figurative language. Instantly, on the first page Haddix uses a metaphor, "The word stuck in Luke's brain." This is something that readers can understand, not only because it is a commonly used phrase, but also if readers are not able to understand the metaphor - they can easily make observations and inferences with the surrounding words. For example, "Oh, don't look like that," Mr. Talbot had said, pretending to be jolly. "It's not reform school or anything." The word stuck in Luke's brain. Reform. Reform. Yes, they were going to reform him. They were going to take a Luke and make him a Lee." Readers can effortlessly understand the figurative language means the word reform scared Luke; it made him constantly fear what he was going to become. To enumerate another one of Haddix's figurative language, on pg. 36-37 Haddix applies an analogy and flashback of Luke's family that refers to the society of Luke's new school. It was like a chess game, Luke realized. He remembered one winter when Matthew and Mark had brought home a chess set from school. They'd had a blizzard after that, and they'd been snowed in for a long

Aside from Luke, we are first introduced to Rolly Sturgeon, a classic troublemaker. He is assigned to show Luke around Hendricks, but instead of showing him around, he decides to just cause chaos. Rolly looked back over his shoulder, and started walking faster - he raced up along the winding stairway. By the time Luke reached the top, Rolly was nowhere in sight. "Boo!" Rolly leaped out from behind the newel post. As illustrated, Rolly messes around with Luke, and causes irritating trouble. At first, Rolly may seem like an unlikeable character, but throughout the story, he adds multiple humorous moments. An additional character is Jackal boy. In the beginning, all readers have a strong hatred against him, but we all have a good reason--he torments Luke constantly. ""Say, 'I am your servant. O mighty master. I shall do your bidding forever. I will not eat or sleep or breathe unless you say it is to be so." Each night Jackal boy waited to torture him; however, soon enough we realize that Jackal boy was just "helping him fit in". Once Jackal boy shows his true role in society, as an undercover agent for the population police, we are right back to disliking the infamous villain who causes nothing but torture upon Luke's life. Readers are also introduced to Trey, a fellow third child. Trey is a likable character, who readers appreciate. He is the only one who is