I borrowed this book off my sister about twenty months ago and the first night I started to read it I had a pretty bad nightmare involving the quite scary creatures in the book and a chase scene. Since then I've picked it up and put it down again so many times I almost gave up. The weird thing is, this book is very, very good. My sister reckons it took me so long to read it because on a subconscious level, because of that nightmare, I didn't want to. Believe me, on a conscious level I did.
This week the World Cup started and one of my new favourite things is watching a football match while reading a book. The book I had with me was Shade's Children. I was very, very determined to finish it before the end of the week. And I did.
And I wish I had read it sooner.
It's a fantastic book that I've already recommended to friends. Fans of Garth Nix's other work (most famously the Abhorsen trilogy) may already have picked this up. For those who haven't, or even those who didn't like his other stuff, give this a go.
The best way to describe it (with no spoilers) would be a young adult post-apocalyptic sci-fi with a tiny hint of romance... fighting big scary (believe me...) creatures to save what's left of humanity... which happens to be only children, because the apocalyptic event made all adults vanish.
If this sounds a little bit like Michael Grant's Gone, that's OK. It kind of does sound like it. But they two are very different stories. Read them both! Shade's Children is a beautiful little story (by 'little' I mean it's a stand-alone novel as opposed to the trilogies and series I usually go for) and despite the nightmare it's probably one of my favourites.
Garth Nix, I will be back...
No comments:
Post a Comment