The company took a month to find it in the warehouse; the local bookstore branch reordered it, assuming the order had been lost. Now they tell me the second order has arrived, two weeks after the first one did. Now that I have the chance to buy a second copy easily and quickly, the question is who would I give it to. It requires an intelligent reader, and I think the middle-school category label is entirely wrong. I wouldn't give this to a kid under 14 unless I knew the kid really, really well.
Hardinge, Frances: The Lost Conspiracy (US title) / Gullstruck Island (UK title) (2009)
The tribes in the book are not based on any single group, but made up using some details from different real groups and a lot from Hardinge's imagination. It's not related to Nation, although there are some similar elements inevitable when you are dealing with a catastrophe and people who live on islands. It's not a spoiler that there are volcanoes on the islands; that's a major cultural element. It's a gripping story with deep subtlety to the cultural interactions and different ways of understanding and misunderstanding each other that happen among the various sub-cultures on the island. It's strong, it's involving, it has some male characters as well as female characters, it's sensitive...
I have four or five hardcover books by this author and I don't regret a single purchase. She's an amazing author.
Hardinge, Frances: The Lost Conspiracy (US title) / Gullstruck Island (UK title) (2009)
The tribes in the book are not based on any single group, but made up using some details from different real groups and a lot from Hardinge's imagination. It's not related to Nation, although there are some similar elements inevitable when you are dealing with a catastrophe and people who live on islands. It's not a spoiler that there are volcanoes on the islands; that's a major cultural element. It's a gripping story with deep subtlety to the cultural interactions and different ways of understanding and misunderstanding each other that happen among the various sub-cultures on the island. It's strong, it's involving, it has some male characters as well as female characters, it's sensitive...
I have four or five hardcover books by this author and I don't regret a single purchase. She's an amazing author.
