![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
two books that have been sitting on my 'finished' pile, waiting to be dealt with:
Away is a strange place to be by HM Hoover. I love Hoover's stuff - consistently good SF for the primary aged reader - and this book has given me no reason to change my beliefs. The story follows Abby and Bryan, two highly privileged kids who get accidentally shipped off to a 'special' school, that basically involves the kind of grunt work of building a space station that can't be left to machines. It is a story about learning how the other half lives, about learning to see how good your life really is, and about growing through adversity. I didn't read it with a critical eye, but just let myself get absorbed in the story, so no serious commentary on this on. 8/10
A String of Chances by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I'm not familiar with Naylor's work, so had no expectations, other than liking the sound of the blurb, which paints it as a simple growing up/teenage love/finding your own way in life story, with a fair bit of Christian faith thrown in. The structure of the blurb worried me a little - a tad Virginia Andrews - and the first half of the book had me presuming that it was just a re-working of that standard of Regency romance plots: find the two people who fight all the time, and they will end up together at the end. So the *actual* story kind of snuck up on me.
( this section of this review is highly spoilery... )
Not only do I think that this is an amazing book with respect to the issues already mentioned, but it is an amazingly good book about faith, and religion, and the differences between the two. It is good to read a book that treats any religion with respect and understanding, as well as not being overbearing or preachy, and this one really manages that fine line. It doesn't change my beliefs, but it did give me the feeling that I have more understanding of aspects of the Christian religion, which was pretty amazing, given that it is a fairly minor part of the story.
As to plot, characterisation, world-building? Good pacing on the plot, especially on the twists, fabulous characterisation - without the caricature that sometimes happens with teenager protagonists, and I have no fault with the world-building. And the 'show don't tell' about everything was fabulous. Oh, and dialogue that *never* made me want to scream...9/10
Away is a strange place to be by HM Hoover. I love Hoover's stuff - consistently good SF for the primary aged reader - and this book has given me no reason to change my beliefs. The story follows Abby and Bryan, two highly privileged kids who get accidentally shipped off to a 'special' school, that basically involves the kind of grunt work of building a space station that can't be left to machines. It is a story about learning how the other half lives, about learning to see how good your life really is, and about growing through adversity. I didn't read it with a critical eye, but just let myself get absorbed in the story, so no serious commentary on this on. 8/10
A String of Chances by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I'm not familiar with Naylor's work, so had no expectations, other than liking the sound of the blurb, which paints it as a simple growing up/teenage love/finding your own way in life story, with a fair bit of Christian faith thrown in. The structure of the blurb worried me a little - a tad Virginia Andrews - and the first half of the book had me presuming that it was just a re-working of that standard of Regency romance plots: find the two people who fight all the time, and they will end up together at the end. So the *actual* story kind of snuck up on me.
( this section of this review is highly spoilery... )
Not only do I think that this is an amazing book with respect to the issues already mentioned, but it is an amazingly good book about faith, and religion, and the differences between the two. It is good to read a book that treats any religion with respect and understanding, as well as not being overbearing or preachy, and this one really manages that fine line. It doesn't change my beliefs, but it did give me the feeling that I have more understanding of aspects of the Christian religion, which was pretty amazing, given that it is a fairly minor part of the story.
As to plot, characterisation, world-building? Good pacing on the plot, especially on the twists, fabulous characterisation - without the caricature that sometimes happens with teenager protagonists, and I have no fault with the world-building. And the 'show don't tell' about everything was fabulous. Oh, and dialogue that *never* made me want to scream...9/10
