The Other Side of the Island (2009) is another post-apocalyptic novel, albeit of a very different nature from my previous read, Alice Hoffman's Green Heart. I've really been into these lately, so my review posts are going to be a tad concentrated on this genre for a bit. Until I get what I like to term "genre-fatigue", but with all that I've been reading so far, it looks like it's going to take a while more. :P

Set in a distant future, Honor is 10 years old when the novel begins, and is just about to start her life anew with her parents, who have been reassigned to live on Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea, from their previous home in the Northern Islands. It slowly becomes clear that Island 365 is governed by the totalitarian and creepy Earth Mother - a regime whose creepiness is exacerbated by the fact that She is supposed to be everything a mother figure is supposed to be; caring and nurturing, seemingly wanting only the best for her children, but by making them live by Her rules: dictating what letter the name of each child born in a certain year should start with - down to an approved list of names of that letter, and regulating the weather and sky within the Enclosure.

Earth Mother is revered in a manner not dissimilar to how many Christians worship; discomfittingly, the much-beloved The Lord's Prayer has been re-written as Earth Mother's Corporate Creed. I became even more uncomfortable when Honor becomes increasingly brainwashed when she's at school to believe that her previous experience of natural phenomena while living in the Northern Islands did not exist, and that her name "Honor" was an improper "H" name because the "H" is a silent one. Honor slowly begins to turn against her parents, who do unusual and even illegal things like leaving the house after lights out, secretly keeping a dropped drawing book when the ownership of books in the society is banned, and choosing to raise their second child, Quintilion, as their own.

Honor decides to change her name to "Heloise", an approved "H" name, thinking that doing so would help her non-conformist parents blend in more and prevent them from Disappearing, which is basically what happens to people who are different. However, this triggers precisely what she was trying to prevent, and both herself and her younger brother become Orphans and have to live in the Boarding House, the place where children who have been Orphaned by their parents' Disappearances live. There, Honor meets her old friend Helix, whose parents had Disappeared shortly before Honors', and they begin to unravel the chilling truth of what happens to these dissenting people who are taken away.

There, that was a rather long synopsis of the story, but as you can probably tell, I got a bit carried away when I re-immersed myself in Honor's society in order to craft that summary. :D

Long story short, I really enjoyed this YA sci-fi, futuristic, dystopian novel. There were elements that Goodman incorporated from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, one of my all-time favourite dystopian novels - mind control via education; the re-writing of history, current weather conditions, and even stories; and living under a paternalistic/maternalistic totalitarian regime (Big Brother, anybody?), all for a collective greater good.

Honor was a pretty believable and relatable protagonist, self-absorbed as most teenagers are wont to be, albeit not about her looks and love-life, as many current YA novels like to make their female protagonists worry about, but rather about how she will fit into her controlled society.

The pace of the book was a bit slow at the start, but it picked up about mid-way, hurtled right through the conclusion at break-neck speed, and it was over even before I knew what hit me. Goodman's writing style suited the tone of her story - not overly lyrical or longwinded, leaning towards straightforward and clipped, almost.

I'd read a couple of reviews on Goodreads before picking up this book to read, and one of the main sticking points that came up pretty often on poorer reviews was the ending. It might seem a bit of a cop out to say this, but I think it's one of those "either you love it or you hate it, no two ways about it" kind of ending. I personally liked the ending, and felt it was befitting for this story: ambiguous enough that Honor's parents may or may not survive in their mission, and yet perhaps it's enough to know that Honor and her parents have tried, if nothing, to make a difference. The trying is all the difference, to me. Not enough YA novels end with such a lack of closure; too many YA novels come across as having an overly happy, almost forced, ending, and some people may argue "but that's what makes a YA novel precisely that, and not an adult text!" I, however, believe that not all endings in life are nicely wrapped up in a pretty bow and presented to you in a shiney gift-wrapped box, and that it's not too early for a young adult to face that reality.

What's stopping me from giving this book a full five stars is that it didn't exactly blow me away. I loved this, yes, but I didn't love it. I think I'd like to save my five star rating for something really mind-numbingly awesome :) Nonetheless, I think this is one of those solid four-starred books that I would strongly recommend to fans of the genre.


Next read: Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Labels: Book Review, Dystopian, Environmental Disaster, Futuristic, Sci-Fi, Young Adults

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Green Heart (2012) actually comprises two short novels - Green Angel (2003) and Green Witch (2010). However, I read them both together and as such, shall review them both together too.

Fifteen-year-old Green is orphaned when her family is killed by a fire that devastates the entire city. Green Angel is the story of her coming to terms with her loss in the wake of her ruined home: through the animals she slowly nurses back to health, and the silent Diamond, a mysterious boy who turns up at her door one night, to whom she has given her heart. Green Witch is a story in which Green learns about love, as she waits for her beloved Diamond who has gone to search for his family to come back to her. Along her journey, she encounters a few witches - who turn out to be wise women who have lost much in the fire and have much to teach her about love.

This was truly one of the most beautiful YA novels I've had the pleasure to read in a very, very long time. Hoffman's writing style is lyrical, poetic, and even somewhat haunting. It's the kind of story that slowly meanders it's way through your heart, wending and winding to touch you unexpectedly. Her writing style reminded me a little of Susan Fletcher's Corrag, which I found to be really beautiful too. Granted, this particular type of writing will not be everyone's cup of tea; some may find it too poetic (is there even such a thing??) with a storyline that takes it's time to get anywhere. But me: I liked it that I had the time to savour each sentence and phrase that helped me almost become Green; I liked letting myself be hypnotised by the lyrical language, being led deeper and deeper into her dreamscape of somewhat folk-tale proportions.

If Green Angel is about coping with loss, Green Witch must be about knowing love. These two heavy lessons are subtly woven into the folkloric tale. Overly didactic and preachy it is not though, and Hoffman does a splendid job of handling such deep and profound subject matter in a manner that would make the more discerning teen think deeper past all the angst, and the adult ponder at the (oxymoronically) deeply simplistic essence of these two tough topics.

That's not to say that Hoffman's presentation of loss, love and ultimately, hope, is as straightforward as differentiating black from white, but rather she took me on a lush discovery through Green's eyes, and I learnt as she learnt. I felt that the text was rife with symbolism, each element meaning so much more than what it appears on the surface. For example, each witch that we were introduced to in Green Witch was an embodiment of a certain aspect of love - which made it all the more meaningful to me, since I've witnessed Green's journey of self-discovery and I've been touched too, by the encounter. I'll admit that this book tugged at my heart strings, almost moving me to tears several times with its innocent profundity and sheer loveliness.

The only tiny thing that kept me from rating this book a full 5 out of 5 was the character development of Green. Yes, I enjoyed seeing through her eyes and just being her, spending time in her enchanted, devastated world, so much so that I wished I could have spent more time with her.

This is totally a non-conventional dystopian and coming-of-age piece of literature, but it's an absolute joy to read and I would recommend this book to anyone with a niggling desire to grapple with the tougher things in life and a couple of hours to spare. Also, for anyone who has dreamt and wants to keep dreaming, because I felt like I had just woken up from an achingly lovely dream when I'd gotten to the end of the book.

“I dreamed of vines and grass, apples and emeralds, rain and white night-flowers that bloomed with white centres. I dreamed of everything I’d lost and all that I’d found and everything in between.” - p.111


Next read: The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman

Labels: Book Review, Dystopian, Fantasy, Young Adults

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Many things have caught my fancy in my twenty-four years of life in this world - hydrangea and calla lily posies, tea, blackberries, exploring Azeroth and beyond, and furry sneaky cheeky felines are but some of them. Nothing beats the feeling of being on the cusp of a Great Adventure, nevermind if the actual distance travelled is more like twenty miles rather than a hundred. There is, in my opinion, always more out there to be learnt, and there will never be enough time for me to ever do it all. When I'm not working like the good, obedient, compliant citizen that I am, I may be found with my nose deep in a book, sipping a cup of tea, running around free with some Elves or Worgen, attempting to build my empire and protecting it from the barbaric hordes, or out sourcing for worthy additions to my painstakingly put-together wardrobe. More relevantly to this blog, the literary genres that most captivate me are dystopian, fantasy, historical, post-modern and modern. I may read the occasional crime or realist novel, but I almost never can complete an auto-biography or romance fiction. I am contactable either by leaving a comment on one of my posts, or via email: kelly.ang [AT] gmail Please feel free to leave your own comment in return - I am very nice and would love to hear from fellow book-lovers :)