In this future New York, the city is divided in two: Light vs Dark. Only Light Magicians can live in and access the wealthy, upper-class life. The Dark Magicians are banished to the Dark, to carve out lives in poverty under harsh rule imposed by the Light leadership.
Lucie and her father escaped the dark at a high price. Now Lucie survives at the mercy of friends and by burying her past as deeply as she can. Only, the people in the Dark don’t want her to forget. They’ve made her name a rallying cry to a revolution that could destroy the new life Lucie has fought so hard to create and the boy she loves more than anything.
This is the first time I’d ever read anything by Sarah Rees Brennan, so I was really excited to give this one a go. The first page totally hooked me. I was like oh boy. Must know more.
Then… somewhere in the rest of the first chapter, I got really lost. There was some explanation of the Light vs Dark storyworld and I don’t know if it was just me, but I really had a hard time following it. I reread it once and ended up kind of just moving on. Something about a magical caste system. Okay.
Once I got past that, I was still pretty intrigued. I worried about Ethan being boring, as other reviewers have claimed. (What is it with modern novels about strong women featuring these eye-candy-only men? Didn’t we argue that this was a bad idea when the gender roles of these characters were reversed?) Honestly, my first impression of him was that he was kind of a doofus with money. A cute doofus with money, but yeah, not much else really going on upstairs behind the dreamboat eyes, you know?
However. Without giving anything away, I just want to say there were some unanticipated hidden depths. And I found myself a little disappointed because I kind of wanted Carwyn to have this reformation going on that flew in the face of what everyone thought about his kind. I thought he and Lucie made a great team, so I started rooting for him, and then Ethan manned up and I was like, wait… now I like them both!
I read this book not knowing it was a retelling of a classic, (though I found myself thinking hey, this is kind of like that one book, as I was reading) so I don’t want to give that away for anyone who wants the same experience. I liked reading it not knowing where it was going.
I’d definitely read more of this series because I loved the characters and have a lot of faith in Brennan’s ability to get me to invest in them. The storyworld was confusing to me and I kind of just decided to overlook it. The Light vs Dark stuff really didn’t play a huge role in the story other than establishing two opposing sides in which one has huge advantages and oppresses the other side.
Romance/Sexual Content While there’s no explicit description of sex, it’s implied that Ethan and Lucie are intimate with each other. Lucie mentions that she only sleeps well when she sleeps with Ethan, that sort of thing. Another character makes a brief comment about his preference for “deviant sex acts” (he doesn’t specify anything further than that.) There are a few kisses.
Spiritual Content The city is divided into sectors of Light and Dark magic. Not everyone has magical ability. Dark Magicians have been threatening to revolt and overthrow the Light Magicians in power. Lucie knows a powerful way Light and Dark magic can be used together.
Violent Content Lawbreakers endure harsh punishments and torture (only described very briefly.) Revolutionaries attack without mercy in a battle scene, killing even innocent bystanders.
Drug Content
Lucie takes Carwyn to a club and offers to buy him a drink. A friend offers to get them some dust, a kind of illegal drug, but Lucie wanted no part of that.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Westing accepts only the brightest and best of students, so long as they also have one problem: a diagnosis of the terminal Peter Pan Virus (PPV.) Noah is one such case. As he wrestles to deal with the drastically shortened timeline of his life and the mandatory separation from his family and former friends, Noah finds something unexpected: love. The problem? He’s supposed to be in love with his girlfriend, Alice. Instead, he’s head-over-heels for the erratic boy who runs a secret club. The more time they spend together, the less certain Noah is about Zach’s feelings. As his friends become sicker, and the end of his own life draws near, Noah becomes frantic for answers. To his questions about love, the outside world, and what gives life meaning and value.
First – in reading some of the reviews about this book on other sites, it looks like some people expected this to be a dystopian story about the mass spread of an incurable virus, etc etc, oodles of suspenseful stuff racing toward a cure or something and were therefore disappointed when they uncovered one huge issue: that’s not what this story is. If you don’t like books about emotions (I do!), this probably isn’t one you want to pick up. Because there are LOTS.
My Review
This is more an emotional journey framed by a pandemic involving massive amounts of teens infected with a deadly, highly contagious, incurable disease. Also, a meteor that might hit earth. But those are kind of just the story’s frame. What we’re really watching unfold is this boy who’s trying desperately to figure out who he is and what that means. To himself. To the boy he loves. To the girl who loves him. And it’s a difficult, messy, heartbreaking, amazing journey.
I read Ostrovski’s debut a couple of months ago and was simply blown away by the unique perspective of the story, the fantastically witty banter between characters—even in the midst of these heartbreaking scenes, these characters were cracking me up—and the way these grand philosophical ideas were naturally woven into the story. But that’s another review, which you can read here.
Point being, as I started to read Away We Go, I was so nervous. I was afraid I wouldn’t like the story. And to be honest, after the first couple chapters, I was still nervous. I’m not sure when I really fell for Noah. Probably about the time he started snarking about sandwiches. Possibly not until he met Zach. But then I was hooked.
There were several things about the story that really stood out to me as awesome. One being the incorporation of the play Marty writes about Peter Pan and Wendy. I loved how that became this thread running through the story and that final scene captured the central conflict felt by so many of the characters in the story.
When I was a teenager, I knew a girl who was terminally ill. We weren’t very close, largely because I didn’t understand a lot of the things she did. Now, looking back, I feel like I really misjudged her. I wanted her to behave like I did. I honestly never considered (not in a mean way, just ignorant, sadly…) what it would be like to be seventeen and know that you probably wouldn’t live past thirty and how that might change what felt reasonable, necessary. Urgent.
I thought about her a lot as I read this book. I thought about how there’s a real question, in the story, about whether or not the students should be educated. I mean, they’re all going to die. Is there a point? Is education a human right? I thought that was a really cool element to explore. It’s not deeply followed, but I liked even just the drive-by moment. I thought about her as Noah rockets down this somewhat destructive path toward trying to capture love.
In terms of the writing, I have to say that the way some of the characters had really distinct voices definitely made them seem real. Ostrovski’s writing absolutely shines in dialogue between characters. Amazing stuff. Moving on before I get star-struck and gushy…
So if you’re looking for a really heart-wrenching read with a lot of complex characters and witty banter, some exploration of moral issues and love, add this book to your list. See below for content information from the story.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity and some crude language used with moderate frequency. One girl condemns this behavior.
Romance/Sexual Content Boy/girl and boy/boy romance and sex described in some detail.
Spiritual Content Westing has a group of students who’ve formed a religious organization for support and faith community. The details of the faith system stay pretty murky, and Noah does not get involved.
Violent Content A boy falls to his death. Noah learns two students have been shot. Brief descriptions of rumors about what happens to kids who read end stage PPV and are transferred to other facilities. (Are they experimented on, that sort of thing.)
Drug Content
Noah (and his friends) drink quite a bit of alcohol, behavior condemned by another friend.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Knife, a young faerie confined within her kingdom inside a large oak tree, is determined to escape to the outside world. As a girl, she came face to face with a human, and survived. Since that day, her curiosity about the house and the strange creatures who live inside it only grows. When Knife finds an opportunity to get a closer look, she takes it. But with every new discovery she makes about the outside world, the strict rules and strange customs of her people only feel stranger and well, wrong. Maybe Knife can save them. If she can find out why her people lost their magic to begin with, perhaps she can reverse the spell. But doing so will risk her place among her people, and it may force her to accept truths about herself, her queen, and her human friend that she’s not ready to face.
I’ll admit that when I picked up this book I was a little iffy. I’ve read a few other novels about faeries recently that really didn’t draw me in. This one, though, really surprised me.
I liked that the faerie realm was not another dimension or whatever, but was this hidden world within an oak tree in the back yard of a house in a rural neighborhood. I loved the way the friendship between Knife and Paul happens. The faeries have cut themselves off from all other creatures and their culture, while perfectly preserved from any outside influences, is dying just as surely as the faeries are. As Knife explores more and more of the outside world, her view of her people changes, and she begins to see how important community is—not just the homogenous community of her own people, but the interaction with others outside the community. This is a great theme, and so true to life. We absolutely need others in our lives above and beyond those who are exactly like us. So I thought the faerie landscape was a really clever way to pull that message into the story without at all sounding preachy. As Knife spent time with others, her creative instincts were stirred and she begins to create new things, something no faerie has done in her lifetime. I loved that.
I liked how Anderson brought the faerie culture to life with just a few really crisp details. The fact that all faeries are female. The idea that one has to bargain or trade one thing for another constantly. No favors among faeries, because owing a debt to someone is a big deal. Things like that made the culture seem really alive to me.
I definitely want to continue reading this series. The second book, Rebel features different central characters, but I enjoyed the faerie world so much I’m definitely interested in reading more. If you liked The Last Faerie Queen or the Goldstone Wood books, you might want to give this series a try.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content A couple of kisses.
Spiritual Content References to the Great Gardener, with whom the faeries seem to credit creation, etc. At one time all faeries had magic. Now only their queen has it.
Violent Content Vague references to an accident which leaves a man paralyzed from the waist down. A crow attacks and tries to kill faeries until one fights back, injuring it and hoping to kill it. There are a couple of short descriptions of battles between crow and faeries.
If you’ve been following The Story Sanctuary for a while, you’ve probably heard me gush about a couple of books I read recently and really enjoyed. Here, as part of an Irish Banana Blog Tour, is the author of those books, graciously answering my pesky fangirl questions….
About Emil Ostrovski
I’m twenty-five.
Rather than give you a witty, self-deprecating account of the trials and tribulations of my twenty-five year old, suburban, upper-middle class, went-to-a-girl’s-liberal-arts-college life, I’ll admit that I haven’t really done anything much worth reading about.
So in lieu of providing you with my biography, I will recommend that you read Desmond Tutu’s. Here.
Why Desmond Tutu?
Well, I’ve always liked his name.
Interview with Emil Ostrovski
I’m super excited to have this opportunity to ask some of the deep burning questions that reading your novels has raised. Both were such deep, emotional stories. I’ll try not to get too sappy with the questions, though…
Thanks for having me! I appreciate the kind words.
If you had to do all your writing from inside a box under a bridge, what type of box would you choose to write in, which bridge would you place it under, and why?
If I had to do all my writing from inside a box under a bridge, I’d probably take up floristry instead. I hear it’s booming.
Ha! I suppose that makes sense. 🙂 In Away We Go, the story centers around characters diagnosed with a deadly virus bearing the name of a famous character in a children’s story (Peter Pan.) Who is your favorite little-known character from children’s literature?
There is a classic Brazilian children’s novel titled My Sweet Orange Tree, which features Zeze, a precocious five-year-old boy living and working as a shoe shiner in Rio de Janeiro. The book jacket describes him as the most mischievous boy in the Western Hemisphere, and that is not far off. Throughout the narrative, Zeze looks after his little brother, constantly gets into trouble with his parents, deals with poverty, escapes to a realm of imagination populated by a talking tree, and even experiences his first brush with death and mortality.
Sounds like an incredible story. I was really moved by your description of The Paradox of Vertical Flight as a sort of good-bye to some expectations you’d had about life and parenting. Is there a personal message hidden in Away We Go as well? (If so, will you share it?)
I suppose the most personal thing I can tell you about Away We Go is that it was a way of trying to deal with unrequited love. It took me a long time to figure out I was gay, I think, because in high school and middle school I never really met a guy who exhibited all three of these very elusive characteristics: cuteness, niceness, and intelligence. When I got to college, I met someone who exhibited all three almost immediately. He was the original Zach, and the original draft of Away We Go was, perhaps, an attempt at grappling with my feelings for him, which I was confused about at the time, since I had not yet fully come to terms with my sexuality. Years later, when I revised the novel for my editor at Greenwillow, Zach changed somewhat, became more like my first ex-boyfriend, by which I mean a little more confusing and inconsistent. At the time I was revising the novel, we had just broken up, and I was pretty hurt. Injecting some of him into Zach wasn’t cathartic, and did not make me feel better. But it felt natural, and I figured I might as well get some mileage out of my pain.
You know, it’s funny – I had a hard time finding all three of those qualities in middle and high school boys, too. 🙂 Though in fairness, girls weren’t much better, I think. Rough time of life. But I digress. In reading the story, I found it so easy to root for Noah in part because of a past destructive relationship in my own life. Something would happen and Noah would respond and I’d be like, “Right?!” So… yes. I think you definitely captured the confusion and pain that some relationships can cause. I hope that seeing the story resonate with readers brings a kind of healing.
Also in your blog post about the release of The Paradox of Vertical Flight, you talk about the idea of a novel emerging as a flash or a half-second dream. What was the flash that started Away We Go?
Away We Go‘s flash was a website that catalogues the “departure” of terminally ill children.
I felt like that was such a unique part of the story. One of my favorite elements about The Paradox of Vertical Flight and Away We Go was the dialogue. I loved the genuine feel and the way that even some of the serious conversations were also filled with banter. Do you have a favorite moment of conversation between the characters in Away We Go and can you share it?
My favorite conversation is probably the last conversation Noah and Zach have in the book. Without giving too much away, I think that it’s an incredibly painful and awkward and honest moment for both of them. They’ve spent so much of the book skirting around their feelings. This is their last chance to speak to each other, and it’s one of a handful of moments that the entire novel is building toward, I think.
That was a great conversation. I won’t give anything away, either. 🙂
Are there other authors whose work inspired the story of Away We Go or whose work inspires you as a writer?
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go was sort of my spirit-guide while writing Away We Go. I found his approach to science fiction fascinating—the idea that science fiction could serve primarily as an opportunity for a specific type of character study. I wanted to emulate what he had done.
I haven’t (yet) read Never Let Me Go, so I can’t speak to the comparison, but I felt like Away We Go was very much a character-driven story inside the shell of a dystopian story-world. So it definitely seems to me that you succeeded.
I love the references to philosophy and classic literature in your novels and the way those ideas are incorporated into the story. Is that something that happens naturally as you write? Do you hope that the references will inspire readers to seek out those stories as well?
In both books, the references happened naturally to some degree in the original drafts, because they were an aspect of the characters’ voices. Jack loves the Ancient Greeks, and Noah likes to reference everyone from twentieth-century existentialists to Shakespeare. During revision, these references were fine-tuned, and made more consistent. More conscious thought was devoted to their deployment.
I think it would be lovely for readers to look up, for example, Dostoevsky’s Notes from The Underground, because Noah talks about it, or to read some Whitman because they are moved by the excerpts Noah includes in his story. But that is not my primary concern. My primary concern is always preserving the authenticity of the character’s voice.
Very cool. In Away We Go, Skittles play a surprising role. Did you eat any Skittles during the writing?
I’m actually more of an M&M’S guy. 😛
Honestly, I can’t blame you. I’ll take chocolate over skittles any day. But I can see how Skittles made a superior metaphor. 🙂
I’m a huge believer in stories that challenge our perceptions of our lives and those around us. Can you name a literary moment which changed or challenged you?
I read TheGrapes of Wrath toward the end of high school. It features a family called the Joads, who flee Oklahoma during the Great Depression and head for California hoping to find work. Perhaps because I loved and cared about the Joads, or perhaps also because Steinbeck was writing about a real moment in our history, the following quote resonated particularly with me:
“For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man—when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live—for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live—for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know—fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.”
To me, at the time, this quote captured the relationship between human beings and their history and their future. It defined history not simply as a sequence but as a moral progression, a progression whose impetus emerged from within ourselves, and it explained the existence of suffering as part of the process by which the human species develops morally.
When I read this excerpt as a seventeen year old kid, I felt something approximating a religious feeling—of hope in humanity, in history, of awe at being a part of something so vast and so beautiful, and ultimately of grace, at all the people who take small steps to move the human species and the human spirit forward.
YES. Such an important message, too. We certainly need the reminder that sometimes suffering is part of a larger, worthy process. Deep stuff. I so appreciate you taking time to share these things.
After Delia’s unexpected death, seventeen year-old Levi spirals into depression, unable to speak to anyone. When several attempts at therapy fail, Levi’s mom sends him from their home in Australia to Maine to live with his estranged father. Bitter, angry, and hopeless, Levi’s determined not to let anyone into his life, especially the girl who reminds him so much of Delia. For her part, Delilah’s content to let Levi to himself. He’s rude and erratic, definitely not the kind of guy she needs in her life. But beyond his angry exterior, she senses his deep hurt and finds herself powerfully drawn to the aching boy caged behind his silence.
Crafting an angry yet likeable character has to be one of the hardest challenges in literature. While it was clear that Levi’s deep grief often motivated his surly outbursts, I found it hard to understand why Delilah was so captivated with him. It’s a pet peeve of mine, too, for a story to follow a romance between a hero with what could become abusive behavior (unpredictable, explosive anger.) While we’re supposed to know and believe in the ultimate well-meaning, sweetness of Levi’s heart, his behavior toward Delilah is, at times, disturbing. He never hits her or anything like that. But honestly, when a boy behaves the way Levi does toward Delilah, we tell her to lose that guy.
All that said, I know we are supposed to root for him and want him to find healing. Certainly healing from grief is a journey, and it’s noble to stand by someone through that process. I think I just needed to see something admirable in Levi. Some reason for Delilah to invest besides the simple mysterious cause of his anger/grief.
I don’t know much about selective mutism, though I’ve read a review on the blog Disability in KidLit of a book dealing with progressive mutism. (I’d be interested to see what they say about the portrayal in this book as well.) I liked that in Remember to Forget, it wasn’t a simple matter of Delilah being the one to break through Levi’s silence. I like that his healing came in layers, too. Though he struggles with continuing to take his medication, the meds do ultimately play a positive role in his recovery.
Over all, this was a pretty simple, sweet story about a boy recovering from grief and learning to give himself permission to be happy again. As far as content, it’s fairly clean. See below for details.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content Brief kissing.
Spiritual Content None.
Violent Content None.
Drug Content
Aiden and Delilah take Levi to a party where teens drink alcohol. Delilah and Levi don’t drink, but Aiden does. Delilah and Levi leave him at the party.
Levi takes several medications to manage depression and anxiety. He struggles with feelings about the medication and sometimes avoids taking it. Levi also smokes cigarettes. He eventually, he decides to quit.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
In 1943 Amsterdam, Hanneke is the girl who can help you find things like coffee, meat, kerosene. But when a lonely widow asks Hanneke to find a missing Jewish girl, Hanneke at first refuses to get involved. Locating a Jewish girl and trying to rescue her is far too dangerous.
On the other hand, maybe danger is exactly what Hanneke needs to distract her from the aching grief of her boyfriend’s recent death. Reluctantly, Hanneke agrees to investigate the girl’s disappearance. Her search throws her in the path of a well-organized group of resistance workers who beg Hanneke to help them. Soon Hanneke is up to her neck in activities that could get her shot at any time. As the days pass and the chance of finding the missing girl alive dwindle, Hanneke becomes desperate. She must find this girl before the Nazis do. She must repay her debt, saving this girl to atone for the life Hanneke’s responsible for ending.
I don’t read much historical fiction, but every time I do, I enjoy it and vow to include more in my reading lists. I grew up reading and listening to Corrie ten Boom’s memoir, The Hiding Place, so the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands holds a special interest for me. It always calls to mind the courage and perseverance of those involved in resistance and rescue efforts.
I loved that Hesse included sides of the resistance movement that I wasn’t at all familiar with, including the Underground Camera movement and the rescue of infants and small children from the major deportment site in Amsterdam.
The story has a lot of layers. On the surface, it’s about finding a girl with the help of various resistance efforts. But the story goes much deeper into how the Nazi occupation affected relationships between friends and lovers. The kinds of small betrayals that, due to the severe restrictions placed on the people by the German occupation, ultimately led to death. All those layers weave together to form an intricate story that kept me turning pages all the way to the end. I read this entire book in one sitting, and I’d probably read it again tomorrow.
The Girl in the Blue Coat will appeal to fans of Code Name Verity, though on the whole, it’s much cleaner in terms of language and violence. This is a great representation of an important moment in history, and because Hesse highlighted some of the lesser known efforts happening behind enemy lines, the tale felt fresh and new. I definitely recommend this one.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild swearing.
Romance/Sexual Content A couple of brief kisses. One boy confesses to being in love with another boy.
Spiritual Content There’s a brief discussion about the fact that at first non-practicing Jews thought they might be safer from Nazis than practicing Jews.
Violent Content A teenage girl is shot in the head.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
