The Young World

Book Title: The Young World

Author: Chris Weitz

Series: The Young World #1

Date Started: September 7th 2014

Date Completed: September 9th 2014

Genres: Dystopian, Thriller, Action, Adventure

Rating: Two stars

Review:

I wasn’t expecting The Young World to blow me away, but I thought it would be entertaining and slightly more series to the typical dystopian setting with kids running around in groups. Unfortunately, I was wrong. This book ended up feeling actually quite childish in most aspects and I just had to put it down because I was getting so caught up in everything but the story.

Jefferson is the leader of one of the teenage gangs roaming New York after the illness took out all the younger and older people. No one knows why it happened, but Jefferson and his tribe are too busy protecting themselves and the people they love from the gun cults and mock-militia ready to threaten them around every corner to have time to work it out.

The main reason I wasn’t able to stick with this novel was the writing style. There were far too many bad habits in the narrative and it felt both like the author was being lazy and was trying too hard.

The little bits of script just tampered with the flow of the writing too much for me, and I don’t understand how it contributed anything to the overall voice. Furthermore, the narrative was trying too hard to mimic that of a teenager: it was just the stupid things they thought about in their situation, but also the overuse of slang words; jumping back and forth between various things; italics representing the character's thoughts when you’re already reading from their direct perspective! It came to the point where the narrators just became unbelievable, childish and frankly annoying.

As far as I read, I couldn’t find any direction in the story. There was an awful lot of information dumping - with no real explanations for the important stuff, and the incompetent character relaying it - and no threat or fear that I connected with. There was basically no build up, if any, to events so even when something that I assume would be significant in the grand scheme of things happened, it gave no more impact than the rambling explanations.

The continuity was also a little all over the place (I’d like to know how they can use this vast collection of weapons) and quite honestly the romance was ridiculous - if you could even qualify blurting out love with a mechanical nature within the first couple of chapters romance.

I’m sad to say I didn’t connect with any of the characters, and due to the number of strange nicknames in quick recession most of the people just blended into one since I couldn’t see any defining qualities.

My one big moan about this book was the very typically male portrayal of the girls. I loved the fact that the main - and pretty much only female lead - was kick ass, but that doesn’t mean that that’s all she’s worth as a character and person. I’m not really happy with her being the ‘slightly unhinged girl-power chick’ and then all the others girls being practically non-existent. (And I’m not convinced that the protagonist disapproving of girls being sold for livestock makes up for the fact that it’s never mentioned again and he does nothing about it.)

I started skim reading very quickly, and like I said, eventually gave up on the book. Pace-wise it wasn’t that nothing was happening, it was just that the things that did happen weren’t thrilling or exciting and the plot didn’t seem to be progressing.

It’s a shame that I didn’t enjoy The Young World. I think I was expecting it to be much more mature Young Adult reading than it ended up being. So perhaps if you’re just getting into YA fiction, or are a fan of Gone (which I also didn’t like, but would compare this to) you might get along with it better than I did.

Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22078263-the-young-world

Wonderstruck

Book Title: Wonderstruck

Author: Brian Selznick

Date Started: August 26th 2014

Date Completed: September 1st 2014

Genres: Adventure, Mystery

Rating: Four stars

Review:

Wonderstruck is another brilliant story from the mind of Mr Selznick, and though it wasn't as engaging as I'd expected, it was still a lovely story accompanied with stunning illustrations.

Ben dreams of the wolves coming to get him, every night. But when he finds a book in his old house, with a mysterious inscription to a father he has never known, and a bookmark with an address all the way in New York, his desire to piece together his past grows. And when he's struck by lightning and loses his hearing, it's the final push he needs to run away and solve the mysteries around his childhood, and why the wolves are always waiting for him when he closes his eyes.

I adore Selznick's writing style, for nothing more than the pure passion for what's writing about. It's so clear when you read any of his work that he has a deep interest in film, history and museums, and an even bigger love for books. This comes through in their involvement in the story, as well as how they're described. It's not often I read a book and I find such a similar person to myself telling me the story.

Another thing that must be mentioned are the illustrations. Whilst being completely and utterly stunning, and portraying an extremely vivid story all by themselves, the pictures are used very cleverly in this book. The character being followed is deaf, and therefore through the drawings we see what life is like for her: you can't hear pictures, and so this allows the reader to relate very closely with the character when they previously wouldn't have had a similar perspective on the story.

I thought the plot line in Wonderstruck was very nice, but not amazing. Essentially, two different stories are being told: Ben's story through the narrative, and then Rose's through the illustrations. The combination of these two stories prevented either one from becoming slow and boring, and the time jumps were particularly interesting to me. Finally, I loved how the two stories drew together at the end and ended up impacting one another quite a bit.

Another element that really impressed me was the inclusion of deafness. It's not something I see a lot of these days, and the way it was included was extremely clever and thorough: little obstacles weren't ignored but the whole story wasn't centered around the fact the characters were deaf. It was just another part of them that was readily accepted by the writer and therefore reader.

Pretty much every character in this story is wonderfully endearing and they each contribute their own little things to the story. However, I felt quite distant and detached from all of them: they didn't show a huge variety of sides and emotions that I picked up on. I think this is probably one of the reasons I didn't enjoy Wonderstruck quite as much as I expected.

Wonderstruck was quick and easy to get through (though I did end up putting it on hold for a few days due to a new release). Since half of it is illustrations, you can choose to fly through it or slow down and appreciate the drawings more. Either way, the story wasn't rushed and actually seemed quite short to me.

I would recommend Wonderstruck to anyone who has a passion for museums, art and writing. While the story is lovely, it's the words and illustrations that makes Selznick's books so wonderful. However, I would recommend reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret to get into his novels first, as his portrayals can be richer than this.

Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/

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