Review by Ian Keogh

American journalist Lyla Wilton has made a career ending mistake. It seems a good idea, then, to remove herself from scrutiny in the USA by accepting an invitation to an island off the Estonian coast. She assumes the request has come from a teacher, but once she’s arrived all her references to a teacher are rapidly cut off with assurances of the children themselves being very capable.

Mathew Klickstein’s smug introduction sets up concerns about his capabilities, but they’re unfounded as an opening chapter sets a chilly atmosphere, poses plenty of questions and establishes Lyla is in above her head even if she doesn’t know it yet.

The tone and suspense are effective due in no small part to the way Evgeniy Bornyakov draws. The Estonian townspeople are given the rictus grins of fear in assuring Lyla all is well, and there’s a darkness to a picturesque village. However, the opening chapter’s single most disturbing image is a saloon car packed with children whose heads are pressed against the windows.

Those children are every bit as sinister as they first seem. Local residents live in fear of them, and Klickstein supplies an otherworldliness by the simple idea of them permanently communicating by text rather than verbally. It’s one of several other unsettling images, not least the constant activity in the graveyard.

A well perpetuated mood of sinister undertones takes You Are Obsolete a long way, with Klickstein’s dangled carrot being just how the children are ensuring compliance with what’s revealed as a horrific agenda. In one respect it’s timely, with current technology at about the right level to imagine some nutter might attempt it. In another it’s as unconvincing as the hold the children have on the adults, which rather undermines everything.

It leaves the set up as greatly more readable than the finale. That swerves being predictable, but it’s neither clear nor convincing. And whose idea was the over the top cover illustration?