ABOUT
Title: The Young World
Author: Chris Weitz
Series: The Young World Trilogy #1
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: July 29th 2014
Source: e-ARC via NetGalley
Synopsis:
After a mysterious Sickness wipes out the rest of the population, the young survivors assemble into tightly run tribes. Jefferson, the reluctant leader of the Washington Square tribe, and Donna, the girl he's secretly in love with, have carved out a precarious existence among the chaos. But when another tribe member discovers a clue that may hold the cure to the Sickness, five teens set out on a life-altering road trip to save humankind.
The tribe exchanges gunfire with enemy gangs, escapes cults and militias, braves the wilds of the subway and Central Park...and discovers truths they could never have imagined.
I received an e-ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This fact in no shape or form affects my review. Except for the existence of the review itself. I received no compensation for this review in any way.This is my honest opinion of the work.
I thought this book is really fantastic. I haven't read a post-apocalyptic like this in some time and this reminded me of why I enjoyed the genre so much.
THE YOUNG WORLD is told in dual POVs that switch between two main characters, Jefferson and Donna. Both of them have a distinct voice to their chapters and they are both smart and funny in the way that they tell their story. However, there were some things about the way the dialogue was formatted that bothered me a lot. During scenes of back and forth dialogue, it's displayed like this:
CharacterName: "Whatever it is that they said."
That formatting really bothers me because it just stands out in my brain and distracts me from reading the story. I get that the characters are writing their story down for posterity, but that formatting just really makes for harder reading.
This book reminds me of a more mature and less supernatural verson of GONE by Michael Grant. This book has the tribes and it has the "rebuilding" of society and such. I can only really base this comparison on what I've read in GONE. I haven't really continued on with that series. Anyways, THE YOUNG WORLD touches on a lot of very possible and very real things that could happen should the apocalypse occur. It touches on prostitution, cannibalism, the social hierarchy and the hierarchy of needs. I like that it was smart with this and how it adds that realism aspect to the novel.
However, with Jefferson, who is a philosophy snob, I felt that he was a little too preachy at times with his beliefs and how he wants to build a better world after they perhaps find a cure for the disease that killed all the adults. Also, I feel that Jefferson is a bit of a bad leader, because he pretty much upped and left his tribe to go off on his adventure. Brave and just a bit stupid.
This book is dark. While it has that realism to it, I do see that YA touch to it as well. I think this would be geared better towards the higher end of the YA age group and probably not great for younger audiences unless you happen to be incredibly mature.
Anyways, I really enjoyed this book and THAT CLIFFHANGER. I really need to know what happens next!
Happy Reading!
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