Full Tilt
Blake is a quiet, reserved, intelligent teen who never steps out of his comfort zone. At an amusement park, he receives a special invitation to a unique amusement park from a girl named Cassandra, and his wild, brash, thrill-seeking younger brother takes her up on the offer; little does he know that the trip is in his mind, and his body is at home, apparently in a coma. Blake and his best friends Maggie and Russ head over to the carnival to save him.
But the carnival isn't a regular amusement park. It preys on its customers and each ride is specially tailored to mess with its victims' minds, and play on their deepest fears. Cassandra, the owner of the carnival, tells Blake that the only way to escape with his friends and brother is for each of them to complete seven rides before sunrise, or they'll be assimilated into the park as workers or worse; as part of scenery or The Works. Can Blake face his darkest fears and a repressed dark memory from his past, or will he be doomed to be stuck in Cassandra's park forever?
A novel by Neal Shusterman, Full Tilt is a horror thriller for young adults that has some truly unsettling rides and explores the dark side of human nature.
- Amusement Park of Doom: Cassandra's park, the main setting of the novel.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Cassandra is implied to be the personification of destruction. As one of the trapped workers puts it:
 |
Worker: She's the tidal wave that wiped out the Minoans. She's the eruption that leveled Pompeii. Whenever something horrible happens in the world-something senseless-whenever there are no survivors, Cassandra is there. |
 |
- Big Sleep: Quinn is in this through most of the book, due to him having traveled mentally to the carnival while his physical body remains in a coma.
- Body Horror: What the Hall of Mirrors does to people who step through the mirrors, becoming a physical representation of their worst inner feelings. Blake and Maggie suffer this. Blake tries to escape with Maggie, but she falters at the last step and becomes deformed again
- The Chosen One: Blake is heavily implied to be the only person stable enough to avoid the lures of Cassandra's park; Cassandra constantly remarks on how unique Blake is and how is he such a mystery.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: In an homage to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Cassandra is crushed under a house like the Wicked Witch of the East.
- Hall of Mirrors: The fourth ride is a horrifying version, where your reflection shows all your worst inner feelings of doubt and self-loathing, and stepping through the mirrors deforms you into the twisted reflections you see.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: The seventh ride has Blake and Quinn fighting Cassandra in a spaceship in a vast place that is basically a combination of their minds. It Makes Sense in Context.
- Repressed Memories: Blake has a version of this regarding the bus accident. He knows it happened, but can't remember the details; in the last ride, he has to relive the memory over and over, where he learns that he scrambled to the back of the bus over the backs of his friends, and in jumping out, caused the bus to fall and leaving all of his friends and his teacher to die. The ride isn't over until he can finally forgive himself and be free of the horrible guilt he was plagued with since that day.