"If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe’s wake—whether set in the days after the change, or decades far in the future."
What I Didn't Like
Honestly, I think any anthology can be difficult to get that into. Short stories make it hard to deeply bond with a character or find oneself deeply wound within a post-apocalyptic world. Each chapter was a brand new premise written by a different author and featuring entirely different characters.
Honestly, I think any anthology can be difficult to get that into. Short stories make it hard to deeply bond with a character or find oneself deeply wound within a post-apocalyptic world. Each chapter was a brand new premise written by a different author and featuring entirely different characters.
"Hw th’Irth Wint Wrong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.guv" by Gregory Maguire was one of those that I could hardly get through at all. The horrific spelling and grammar made sense with the setting, but it was so dense that I could hardly trudge through. "The Great Game at the End of the World" by Matthew Kressel and "Visiting Nelson" by Katherine Langrish were my two other least favorites.
Another thing that bothered me was the content of some of these stories. A few were sexual in nature and contained explicit language. I'm not sure how every short story in this collection could be labeled Young Adult.
What I Did Like
My favorite short stories in the anthology were: "The Segment" by Genevieve Valentine, "Rust With Wings" by Steven Gould, "Reunion" by Susan Beth Pfeffer, "All I Know of Freedom" by Carol Emshwiller, and "After the Cure" by Carrie Ryan.
I learned quite a bit about the post-apocalyptic and dystopian genres from these excellent writers. Some stories I didn't like at all; others left me breathless and on the edge of my seat. Three stars.
"A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing's will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger - and a possible murderer - to inherit his vast fortune, one things' for sure: Sam Westing may be dead... but that won't stop him from playing one last game!"
This was one of my favorite novels when I was a child. I read it again for the first time in probably a decade and I am still in love. The Westing Game is what first introduced me to the appeal of the murder mystery genre.
Ellen Raskin does an excellent job of creating vivid and memorable characters. One of my favorite things about this novel is that even though it is for children, Raskin writes about people from all walks of life—adults in their sixties and forties and twenties—as well as youth. I felt alienated from adults when I was a little girl, as I’m sure most children do, but I remember being just as fascinated about the fate of Otis Amber or Flora Baumbach as I was about Turtle Wexler. Raskin paints colorful characters that can be beloved by adults and children alike.
The mysteries woven in this novel are so clever. The clues, the names, the setting… every single piece of this story left me in amazement and delight. Five stars.
"Lakshmi lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs."
This story, written in a series of poems, is devastating. It shares the thoughts of a 13-year-old girl who has grown up in an impoverished village in Nepal and is sold as a sex slave in India. Hardly anyone speaks her language. She is given shoes to wear for one of the first times in her life. She is a small, forgotten girl in a very big city. And she is taken to live in a brothel that is dirty and harsh and frightening, where she is expected (and forced) to spend her nights with men until whatever day in the distant future that her body gives out.
Patricia McCormick voices Lakshmi in a way that makes her identifiable to every young girl. She is innocent and childlike in the first pages, but the reader sees the childhood drain from Lakshmi’s words as all but vague memories of her past life are snatched from her completely. McCormick depicts many of the brutal realities of sex trafficking. It is heartbreaking to read about the deception of the poor villagers and how many truly believe that their daughters are going to work as maids in the city.
However difficult it was to read certain parts of this book, McCormick brings awareness and insight into the realities of sex trafficking. I recommend Sold to mature readers and I encourage everyone who reads the book to also look into donating to the International Justice Mission and other organizations that are fighting against child slavery. Five stars.
"Set in the near-future, Into the Forest is a powerfully imagined novel that focuses on the relationship between two teenage sisters living alone in their Northern California forest home. Over 30 miles from the nearest town, and several miles away from their nearest neighbor, Nell and Eva struggle to survive as society begins to decay and collapse around them. There is talk of a war overseas and upheaval in Congress, but it still comes as a shock when the electricity runs out and gas is nowhere to be found. The sisters consume the resources left in the house, waiting for the power to return."
What I Liked
Jean Hegland is a beautiful writer. She captivated me with the very tangible sisterhood between Eva and Nell. Their relationship is incredibly realistic and often reminded me of my own tangled bond with my younger sister. Hegland describes the isolated, almost fairytale life in the woods with so much beauty. I have read very few “end of the world” novels that have taken place in such a small and quiet setting.
What I Didn’t Like
The incestuous relationship. I don’t care if this is a spoiler; I wasn’t aware that the sisters would “make love” when I began the novel and I wish someone had warned me ahead of time. No matter how beautifully Hegland may write, there are few things that make me feel more uncomfortable than a page-long description of an incestuous romance between two sisters. I wouldn’t describe Into the Forest as Young Adult at all. This is not a book I would offer my friends at university, let alone a fifteen-year-old.
Some feminist themes really bothered me. As a woman, I appreciate reading certain feminist literature, except when it makes men out to be evil and women to be good. For example, "She wondered what was worse: a bear or a man." Two stars.
"Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark."
I do not care for paranormal. I do not care for books about the supernatural. But I could not put this book down until I had devoured it from cover to cover. Any time I read a novel by Neil Gaiman, I am left in awe at the worlds he can create. I wish I could pack a suitcase and go stay in his mind for a few months.
The characters in this novel are strikingly memorable. I will never forget Lettie or Ursula or even the opal miner. The horror scenes--even the threats of horror--left me shivering with terror and delight. One of the most disturbing yet fascinating passages from the book was, "Perhaps I ought to turn you inside out, so your heart and brains and flesh are all naked and exposed on the outside, and the skin-side's inside. Then I'll keep you wrapped up in my room here, with your eyes staring forever at the darkness inside yourself." Four stars.
To see full reviews (with spoilers), you can check out my profile on GoodReads.
What are you reading?
One year ago: 7: Clothes
Two years ago: Breaking
Three years ago: Did you know?
Four years ago: The Crazy Cat Lady
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