All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

"What if life could be this way? Only the happy parts, none of the terrible, not even the mildly unpleasant. What if we could just cut out the bad and keep the good?"

All The Bright Places is a story of two teens struggling to make sense of life through the lens of depression and suicide. It is a tragic tale with lessons for us all.

Two seventeen year olds, Theodore Finch and Violet Markey unexpectedly meet at the top of the bell tower at their school. They are not there for the view, but to commit suicide. Finch, a loner with few friends, is struggling with depression and the break up of his parents. It's the first week of the second semester of senior year and he's planning on ending his life.

When a student on the ground points, not at him, but at the girl standing on the ledge on the other side of the tower, Finch realizes he's not alone. On the other side of the tower is "Violet Something" who is "cheerleader popular" and not someone you would think would consider suicide.

Violet is trying to come to terms with the death of her older sister, Eleanor, in a car accident last year. She recognizes Theodore Finch and because she's beginning to panic,  allows him to move closer to her and help her off the ledge. She in turn helps Finch off the ledge. While other students such Gabe Romero (Roamer) taunt him to jump, Finch's best and only friend, Charlie Donahue, comes to the top of the tower to help him. Because Finch yelled his thanks to Violet for saving him, their classmates believe that it was Violet who saved Finch. In the aftermath of the tower incident, both are sent to the student counselors for help.

Mr. Embry, whom Finch refers to as Embryo, warns that if he tries something like this again he will be suspended and wants him to come in to talk twice per week. Finch missed five weeks of school near the end of last semester during what he refers to as the "Asleep". His mother never knew, instead his sister Kate phoned the school and was the person Mr. Embry unknowingly spoke with. Violet meanwhile meets with Mrs. Marion Kresney who is concerned about the nightmares Violet has been having since the car accident. Mrs. Kresney is concerned because Violet has applied to a crazy assortment of colleges, except the one she most wanted to go to, NYU, where she was hoping to study creative writing. Although Violet filled out the application and wrote her essay she never submitted either.

Violet and her sister had a website, EleanorandViolet.com, that they started when they moved from California to Indiana. This website posted their views on different areas of life. With Eleanor's death, that website and Violet's desire to write have ended. Violet reveals to her counsellor that she has not driven again nor has she gotten into her parent's car. And she hasn't returned to cheerleading or student council. It's obvious she's not been coping well with her sister's death.

In their U.S. Geography, Finch impulsively (and to Violet's embarrassment) asks Mr. Black if he can partner with Violet for a class project to see three wonders of the state of Indiana. At first Violet doesn't want to be involved with Finch on this project. Finch however is very persistent. He comes over to her house one night and during a walk Violet tells him that she was considering suicide because of what happened to her sister and that she felt nothing mattered anymore. Finch tells her that living life to the fullest is important. Finch sends her his rules for "wandering" to see the wonders of Indiana. Violet agrees to do the project with him but insists that they walk or ride bikes and that they do not go far from Bartlett. Finch accepts this and their first "wandering" is to Hoosier Hill, eleven miles away.

Violet and Finch's friendship begins to grow slowly as they message one another on Facebook quoting passages from Virginia Woolf and Narnia. This blossoming friendship has the effect of causing Finch to want to stay in the "Awake" (a term he uses for staying alive) and he draws up a list of how to do this. And although her friends are shocked to see her spending time with Theodore Finch, resident "Freak" of Bartlett High School, Violet finds herself falling for him.

Even more importantly Finch helps Violet learn to live again. When he meets her parents one morning, he learns what she was like before the accident. So when Violet tries to bike to their next destination Finch confronts her about her fear of getting into a car again.

"The other Violet sounds fun and kind of badass...Now all I see is someone who's too afraid to get back out there. Everyone around you is going to give you a gentle push now and then, but never hard enough because they don't want to upset Poor Violet. You need shoving, not pushing....Otherwise you're going to stay up on the ledge you've made for yourself."

This pushes Violet into Finch's car (nicknamed the Little Bastard) and they drive to their next destination, the Bookmobile Park outside of Bartlett.

Although Finch tries to stay in the "Awake" his behaviour continues to be erratic. He misses his appointment with Embryo, fantasizes about hanging or poisoning himself and meets Violet to walk her to all her classes getting both of them detentions. One day he discovers his sister Decca cutting out all the "mean parts and bad words" from the books she has found around their home. Finch tries to cheer her up but wonders why she's doing this. Decca tells him that the bad words "trick you". Finch understands this because of the nasty article written about him in the school gossip magazine, Bartlett Dirt. "Better to keep the unhappy, mad, bad, unpleasant words separate, where you can watch them and make sure they don't surprise you when you're not expecting them." This seems to unsettle Finch further. He retreats to his bedroom where he begins taking down all his creative sticky notes and decides to repaint his bedroom from deep red and black to blue.

It is at this point that Finch and Violet start to take different paths. After several wanderings, which Violet has recorded in the notebook Finch gave her, she begins to rediscover the urge to write. Violet writes out possible story ideas and the beginnings of a new website. She takes a picture of the bulletin board in her room which is covered with the ideas and sends it to Finch but gets no response from him.

Finch however, begins to unravel. He misses a week of school unbeknownst to his mother, who never checks the answering machine and thus never learns about his absence. When he finally reappears at school, Finch leads Violet into trouble. Pulling a fire alarm to get her out of class, Finch takes her down to the river where he shows her a hooded crane, impulsively strips and goes swimming in the icy water and ends up in a fight with Roamer.

When Violet's parents learn of her skipping school and the fight at the river, they confront her. This leads Violet to tell them how she's feeling, that she has lost everything, her cheerleading, her student council, her boyfriend and her friends. "I wasn't acting out. That wasn't what it was...I don't have any friends or a boyfriend, because it's not like the rest of the world stops, you know?...Everyone goes on with their lives, and maybe I can't keep up. Maybe I don't want to." Her parents acknowledge her struggles and affirm what she is feeling. Her mother comes to her room, spending time with Violet to help her focus on setting up her new website. The result is that Violet has some concrete ideas, purchases her new website domain, www.germmagazine.com and decides that she will have contributors to her website. She also realizes that this is the first day she hasn't crossed out a day on her calendar. She throws out the calendar and puts Eleanor's glasses back in her sister's room - signalling that she is beginning to move on.

In contrast, Finch's family is clueless about what is going on with him. After the fight with Roamer at the river, Violet races to Finch's home to check on him but finds his sister Kate strangely ambivalent, "You never can tell what that boy's going to do." After Violet leaves, Finch who was in his room, knows he could go downstairs and tell his mother how he's feeling but her typical response will be to suggest Advil and to calm down. "...because in this house there's no such thing as being sick unless you can measure it with a thermometer under the tongue.Things fall into categories of black and white -- bad mood, bad temper, loses control, feels sad, feels blue." He tries to convince himself to live, "I will stay awake. I will not sleep." He even considers calling his school counselor but then doesn't. It turns out to be a fateful decision.

The next day Violet is stunned to see Finch at breakfast with her parents. Her father states that he has now set some rules for their geography project and asks for Finch's parent's contact information. Violet is upset at hearing Finch lie to her father about not having seen his dad for years and notices that even his handwriting is not the same as usual - a lie in her eyes. Finch also tells Violet's father that he's not sure what his plans are for the future because he doesn't know how long his life will be and he prefers to live as though he only has two day left. When Violet confronts Finch about his lies he tells her "Because it's not a lie if its how you feel." but this only angers Violet who wonders if he has been lying to her too.

Finch and Violet continue their wanderings through Indiana and as they do their relationship deepens and changes. At one stop at the Blue Hole, a round pool of water ringed by trees, Finch and Violet go swimming. The Blue Hole is reputed to be bottomless and capable of sucking a person down to their death. Finch stays underwater for so long that he terrifies Violet, who thinks he may have drowned. This intensely emotional incident leads them to become intimate, with Violet staying out all night and not telling her parents. When she returns in the morning with Finch, they are furious and tell her she cannot see Finch. Because Violet's parents were so worried they contacted Finch's mother, who in turn called his dad.

The repercussions from this situation set in motion a series of events that deepen Finch's depression and alienation. His behaviour becomes increasingly bizarre and impulsive. He assaults Roamer, gets expelled from school, overdoses on sleeping pills, begins giving away his possessions and moves into his bedroom closet. All without his family noticing. He also begins withdrawing from his relationship with Violet. When Amanda Monk tells Violet about Finch's attempt to kill himself, Violet begins to understand that Finch, the boy who has helped her recover her own will to live, is in more danger than she could ever have imagined. But is there enough time to save him from himself?

Discussion

All The Bright Places was a very difficult read. Reading about someone spiraling down into depression and suicide without anyone really noticing is intensely disturbing. Niven's story does a good job of portraying mental illness, of showing how getting the right support is so important and how mental illness is still very much stigmatized. All The Bright Places paints an accurate picture of how those suffering from mental illness can be passed over by family and even the closest of friends.

The novel is narrated by both Finch and Violet, so the reader gets to see what is going on in the minds of each. Both teens are dealing with difficult life situations; Finch's parents have split up and Violet has lost her older sister in a car crash. It gradually becomes apparent that Finch and Violet come from very different homes. Violet's parents are married and her mother is a college professor and writer who did her graduate work at NYU. Her father is an intelligent, caring man who engages Finch in an intelligent and meaningful way. They are concerned about Violet but allow her space to deal with her sister's death. In fact, they may even be over zealous in their attempts to help their daughter. When Violet returns home early from a party at Amanda Monk's home, her mother says, "Do you want to talk about anything? I know that must have been hard, and surprising. Why don't you hang out with us for a while?" Violet defines her parents as being perfect. "They are strong and brave and caring, and even though I know they must cry and get angry and maybe even throw things when they're alone, they rarely show it to me. Instead they encourage me to get out..."

In contrast Finch lives in a family shattered by divorce and has two parents who are self absorbed. Finch lives at home with his mother, Linda, his eighteen year old sister, Kate, and his eight year old sister Decca. His father, Ted, who is a retired professional hockey player, has left Finch's mom and now lives in a new home with his younger wife and her son. Finch's father is a man with a powerful physical presence. He has an anger problem and is physically and emotionally abusive towards Finch and his mother. When Finch was eleven, his father broke his mother's chin and put her in hospital. A year later, Finch was assaulted. Finch was often told he was worthless and stupid. His mother holds down two jobs and according to Finch, has been "trying hard to be the cool parent." But she is also deeply suffering, telling Finch that she "never expected to be single at forty." Her way of coping is to drink wine at night and to routinely ask her kids what they learned each day.She tries to understand Finch's sadness and blames it on the divorce and his dad. With his father gone, Finch feels that everyone in the family is "running off in three different directions." His mother expects that Finch to be the "man of the house" not realizing that Finch is in crisis and actually needs a man - his father. He has only one friend at school and is often called "Freak", a name he was given after he asked a classmate to jump with him in front of a car to see if it would make the headaches he was having disappear.

The drastic differences in their family life, the level of involvement of the parents in their child's life make a significant difference in the outcomes for Finch and Violet. Unlike Violet, Finch has a history of mental illness which began when a cardinal died after repeatedly flying into his family's living room window. It was after this event that the dark moods began. All the warning signs and strange behaviours are simply written off by Finch's family as "That's just his thing. It's what he does." Sadly this means that Finch will never get the help he truly needs.

Niven also explores the wide reaching effect suicide has on those left behind. At school, Finch had few friends, was frequently bullied and called Freak. Violet is upset to see how her school responds to his death. Suddenly everyone seems to care about Finch. "...the entire school body seems to be in mourning. There is a lot of black being worn, and you can hear sniffling in every classroom." A shrine to Finch has been placed in the main hallway complete with notes stating how he is missed. This hypocrisy makes Violet angry. "I want to tear them all down and shred them up and put them in the pile with the rest of the bad, false words, because that's exactly where they belong."

Finch's counsellor, Mr. Embry tells Violet he feels responsible - to some extent but that he doesn't know what else he could have done. Embry tells Violet she is a survivor and that how well she does depends upon how she copes emotionally with what has happened. He gives her a resource to read to help her.

Violet, who was closest to Finch suffers intensely from his suicide. She feels anger at Finch leaving: "You can't do this to me. You were the one who lectured me about living. You were the one who said I had to get out and see what was right in front of me and make the most of it and not wish my time away...." Violet even hates Finch for dying. She also experiences guilt at her last words being to him being angry ones: "What would I have said to him if I'd known I would never see him again?" From the book Mr. Embry gives her Violet comes to understand that because of Finch's suicide she is "forever changed", something she must accept if life is to go on. Eventually in her letter to Finch, post-suicide, Violet is able to express how he helped her and what she is feeling. Violet comes to some semblance of acceptance over what has happened when she completes the wanderings Finch undertook before his death and she finds a poignant letter he left for her.

As in life, Finch and Violet's families behave very differently after his death. While Violet's family believe that Finch's death was a suicide and that his family are partly to blame, Finch's mother and father are willingly to believe that his death was an accidental drowning. They are so disconnected from their own son they don't appear to comprehend the reality of what has happened.

Niven tackles some of the stigma surrounding mental illness and in particular suicide through the support group that both Finch and Amanda attend. Finch knows that people who have a mental illness are stigmatized in a way that people with other illnesses are not and he feels overwhelmed by it. "I want to get away from the stigma they all clearly feel just because they have an illness of the mind as opposed to, say, an illness of the lungs or blood." A girl in the group vocalizes how suicide survivors are treated due to this stigma. "My sister died of leukemia, and you should have seen the flowers and the sympathy.' She holds up her wrists,and even across the table I can see the scars. 'But when I nearly died, no flowers were sent, no casseroles were baked. I was selfish and crazy for wasting my life when my sister had hers taken away.' "  Later on when Violet tells Finch she wants to help him, Finch tells her "But I'm not a compilation of symptoms. Not a casualty of shitty parents and an even shittier chemical makeup. Not a problem. Not a diagnosis. Not an illness. Not something to be rescued. I'm a person."

Finch is the tragic character in this novel, suffering from mental illness and a dysfunctional family. Throughout the story he tells Violet numerous times why she should go on living, yet is unable to take his own advice or find his own reasons for living. Instead, he seems to consider himself to be irreparably broken. Although Finch could not save himself, in the end he does save Violet, at the bell tower and later on when she decides to continue to live even after his death. Violet is a complete contrast to Finch. She has a supportive family and no long lasting mental health issues. And while Violet could not save her sister nor Finch, she is able to save herself.

All The Bright Places is a haunting novel, filled with tragedy and loss but also hope.Niven writes at the back of her novel that she lost a boy she loved to suicide. Like Violet in her novel, she was the one who found him. Unable to speak much about her experience, Jennifer Niven decided to write about the experience in the form of this novel.

All The Bright Places is slated to be made into a movie, starring Elle Channing. 

Book Details:
All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
New York: Alfred A. Knopf     2015
378 pp.

Winnie: the true story of the bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh by Sally M. Walker

Winnie tells the true story of the bear who became the basis for the famous children's books, Winnie the Pooh written by A. A. Milne.

After studying at the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph, Ontario, in 1911 Harry Colebourn was  appointed a veterinary surgeon for Canada's Department of Agriculture in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In joined the 18th Mounted Rifles and eventually became one of the original officers of the 34th Fort Garry Horse. When World War I broke Harry volunteered and was granted a leave of absence.

Harry was sent from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Valcartier, Quebec by train. He was transferred from the 34th Fort Garry Horse to the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps where he held the rank of lieutenant. When the train stopped in White River, Ontario, Harry met a hunter who had a bear cub on a leash at the train station. The hunter did not realize that the bear he had shot had a cub and he was now trying to sell the cub. Harry purchased the cub for about $20. He decided to name the cub, Winnipeg, after the city he lived in. Eventually that name was shortened to Winnie.

The real Winnie with Harry Colebourn in 1914

Harry  was attached to the Second Canadian Infantry Brigade under the command of Lt. Colonel Arthur W. Currie. The Second left Gaspe Bay for England on October 3, 1914 with Harry and Winnie. During his time in England, Winnie became a pet and mascot to the soldiers. However, when the time came for Harry and his fellow soldiers to travel to the battlefields in France, Winnie was placed in the London Zoo.

Harry Colebourn wrote six diaries during the war and he revealed that he fully intended to return to the Zoo to take Winnie back to Canada. However, by the end of the war, Winnie was an important attraction at the zoo and she delighted thousands of children who came to the zoo. As a result, Colebourn decided that she should stay there and he returned to Canada leaving her behind in London.

One of the children who delighted in Winnie at the London Zoo, was the son of A.A. Milne, Christopher Robin. Milne who also served in World War I with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was a novelist and poet. His books Winnie the Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner were based on Winnie, Harry's black bear at the London Zoo. The other characters in the books were based on his son's stuffed toys.


In Winnie, Sally Walker tells the story of Winnie, how she met and was purchased by Colebourn and her life with the soldiers and then at the London Zoo.

Walker's story is illustrated by the delightful artwork of Jonathan D. Voss who used watercolour with pen and ink on Arches Hot Press Watercolor Board. Voss's illustrations have a whimsical character to them that seem to capture Winnie's easy going nature for which she was famous.

The author has included many photographs on the inside covers of Harry Colebourn as well as several photographs of A.A. Milne and Christopher Robin. There is a detailed Author's Note, a list of Sources and also information for further research.

Winnie lived to the age of twenty, dying in 1934. Her death was reported in many newspapers throughout Canada, England and the United States.


You can read more about Major Harry Colebourn at the Canadian Great War Project.

Book Details:
Winnie: the true story of the bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh by Sally M. Walker
New York: Henry Holt and Company 2015

Walking Home by Eric Walters

Thirteen year old Muchoki lived in the town of Eldoret with his parents and his seven year old sister, Jata. His family had a house on a small piece of land, livestock and a store in the market. He had many friends and relatives. Muchoki's father is Kikuyu, his mother Kamba, so he is Kikukamba. Everyone knew who was Kikuyu and who was Luo or Kamba. It didn't matter because they lived and worked side by side. Then one day, Muchoki and his family learned that it did matter.

Muchoki and his family, along with relatives, neighbours and people they didn't know found themselves being attacked. They sought refuge in a church from the mob armed with machetes, clubs and torches hoping that they would be safe on sacred ground. Instead, the church was set afire. Only Muchoki, his sister and his mother survived the mob. They now live in a tent in a refugee camp that holds over twelve thousand people, surrounded by barb wire and guarded by soldiers.

Muchoki's mother is suffering from malaria and very weak. This leaves Muchoki to care for his sister who attends the refugee camp school while he goes outside the camp to gather firewood. One day he meets a boy, Jomo, who with his sisters has come to collect firewood. Jomo tells Muchoki that he is Meru and that his family is waiting for their father to come from Isiolo to take them home.

One night Muchoki's mother tells them a story about the origin of her people, the Kamba, which means 'people of the string." She tells them that the Kamba began when a boy and a girl ran away to be together when their families forbade them from marrying. To be able to find their way back to their homes some day, the girl tied a string to the door of her home and let it out as they fled into the night. They married and had a child and wishing to return home to show the child to their parents they followed the string home, only to find that it had broken. They could not longer find their way home.

When Jomo decides he is going to go outside the gates to kill a gazelle for his family, Muchoki accompanies him. However the two boys do not kill a gazelle but instead encounter a Masai warrior who has brought down a gazelle. Because Muchoki scared the gazelle into the path of the Masai he gives Muchoki a share of the kill. On their way back into the camp, Jomo raises the ire of one of the camp guards but Muchoki smooths the situation over by inviting the guard to share their meal of the gazelle with his family. It is an act that will have significant repercussions for Muchoki and his family in the not to distant future.

The guard comes to dinner that day and Muchoki and his mother learn that he is from the Kalenjin tribe which massacred Muchoki's father and the other Kikuyu people. However the guard tells them that what happened was terrible and that he is a Kenyan first and a Kalenjin second.

When Muchoki's mother dies of malaria the man in charge of the camp tells him that he and his sister will be taken to different orphanages to live. Muchoki is deeply upset by this and determined not to be separated from his sister, he makes plans to leave. The Kamba soldier who had dinner with them helps Muchoki by telling him to leave that night, before the matron arrives in the morning to collect his sister. With the soldier's help and the money he gives Muchoki, they leave the camp that night and head to the road leading to Nairobi. Like his ancestors who tried to follow the string back to their homeland, Muchoki is determined to find his mother's family in Kikima.

Synopsis

In 2011, Eric Walters along with his friend Henry Kyatha, four children from the Rolling Hills  Orphanage and four young Canadians, made the same journey Muchoki and Jata undertook in Walking Home. They walked "from an internal displacement camp on the Mara, up the Rift Valley, down to Nairobi, through Kibera, along the Mombassa highway, to the mountains of Kikima." Along the way they interviewed, videotaped and wrote about their experiences and this adventure became the basis for the novel. It is this personal journey that gives a tone of authenticity to both Muchoki and Jata's characters as well as the to the large cast of supporting characters in the novel.

One of the strongest themes in the novel is that of the personal journey. Each of us experiences our life as a journey, both a physical and an inner spiritual one. Not only does Muchoki undertake a strenuous physical journey of almost 200 km but he also experiences a personal inner journey that forces him to change the way he thinks about those who have grievously harmed him and his family.

Muchoki's family who are Kikuyu, were attacked by Luo and Kalenjin. Muchoki is now fearful of these people and does not trust them. When he forms a polite friendship with one of the guards at the gate and invites him to dinner he learns that the man in a Kalenjin. Muchoki's response is one of anger.

"I tasted bitterness in my mouth. If I had known he was Kalenjin, I would never have invited him to our tent, never offered the invitation to dine at our side."

However, the guard does not respond in the way that Muchoki expects. Instead he tells him that he defends all Kenyans and that the violence "is nothing more than an excuse for people of violent natures to act violently." He blames the Kenyan politicians who have divided the people as tribes instead of uniting them. The soldier tells them that "An eye for an eye will leave everybody blind." He also tells Muchoki's mother that if "...I can repay her kindness, I am at your service."

Despite what has happened to him in Eldoret, Muchoki finds himself forced to trust in the Kalenjin soldier. This soldier not only helps him and his sister leave the camp, he also gives him directions and money to take the matatu (bus) part of the way to Nairobi. After the soldier hears Muchoki's story of the massacre in the church at Eldoret he tells  Muchoki, "It is important that Kalenjin show friendship to Kikuyu and that Kikuyu do the same to Kalenjin...You must try to do this."

This causes Muchoki to wonder if he could show kindness to the people who have caused great harm to his family, wondering if this is being disrespectful towards his murdered father's memory. But the soldier warns him that "You cannot fight evil by becoming evil...The only cure for darkness is light."  The soldier warns Muchoki to not let the evil deeds erase the good that remains in him. Still at this point Muchoki states that while he will remember the Kalenjin's act of kindness, it in no way makes up for the murder of his father and his family.

While they are walking towards the road that will take them to Nairobi, Muchoki and Jata come across a church. The minister asks his congregation if they are not justified in killing out of revenge for the murders of Kikuyu by the Kalenjin and Luo. When the congregation gives its approval of such, he tells them that the commandment given by God to Moses, Thou Shalt Not Kill was written in stones so that people might know it was eternal and firm. The minister tells them they may defend themselves, but they will not attack and they should spread peace. This causes Muchoki to reconsider his determination to seek revenge for the killing of his father.

"It is easy to say those words, sitting here inside this church where there was so much, where it seemed as if nobody had lost anything. Would he still be saying the same things if his father had been murdered? Would I kill the men who killed my father if I had the chance? Yes. It would be my duty. Would I kill those who were innocent, even if they were Kalenjin or Luo? I knew  what I would have answered in the weeks that had passed before we were helped by the two Wilsons, before I'd heard his words."

Further along in their journey, Muchoki and Jata are helped by Omolo, a farmer who sells oranges in Nairobi. Muchoki agrees to help Omolo push his cart up the hills of the city in exchange for a few oranges. However when Omolo is threatened by thugs who want to steal his donkey and cart of oranges, Muchoki scares off the attackers. When Omolo hears that Muchoki's father was Kikuyu, he apologizes as he is Luo and the Luo have killed many Kikuyu in the riots. Omolo offers Muchoki and Jata a place to spend the night but Muchoki is frightened when he learns that he will be staying inside a compound with Luo. Instead Muchoki is given a safe place to stay and Omolo walks with them through Nairobi so they can safely begin the next part of their journey.

Finally when Muchoki and Jata are in Nairobi, and Jata begins to question him on why God allowed their family to be murdered, Muchoki reveals how his encounters with the soldier, the minister and Omolo have changed him.

"I had once felt that it was my duty to avenge my father. But now, when I thought of the sergeant and the minister and Omolo -- when I thought of all the people who had helped us along the way -- I knew that I had already chosen a different path."

Muchoki and Jata also meet Masai warriors twice in the novel. According to Muchoki, the Masai have a reputation of being short of temper and fearless. While he is afraid of them, in both his encounters with the Masai they treat him kindly and return his respect. Through all these encounters, Muchoki learns the important lesson of treating others with respect and of forgiving others, even when a great wrong has been done.

Walking Home is a gentle treatment of tribal violence in East Africa. Written for children, Walters covers the brutal violence in a way that is not graphic yet conveys both the magnitude and the far-reaching effects of the terror that children like Muchoki and Jata experience. A country is seriously affected when entire families are destroyed. The displacement of families from homes and livelihood affects the health and education of children and severs their connection to the communities they have lived in. All of this is effectively portrayed in Walking Home. Muchoki was a good student, third out of forty-seven students and hoping to attend at least a provincial school, if not a national school. His father owned a prosperous business and the family was doing well enough that Muchoki had never known hunger. All this changes with the murder of his father and the loss of their home.

A map of Muchoki and Jata's journey would have been a wonderful addition to the novel. Walters has provided readers with an array of multimedia resources at www.ericwalterswalkinghome.com as they read the novel.  For example in the first chapter, readers can listen to Eric read the opening two paragraphs, they can view pictures of the tents in a displaced person's camp 100 km from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Readers are very much encouraged to check out the multitude of photographs, videos and log entries for each of the books chapters.

Walking Home is a well written, engaging novel that will help North American young people understand life in Kenya and may encourage them to reach out and become involved in helping their brothers and sisters in Kenya, a country rich in resources and blessed with its greatest wealth of all, its diverse and unique people.

Book Details:
Walking Home by Eric Walters
Canada: Doubleday
290 pp.

Fire Girl by Tony Abbott

Firegirl is a coming of age novel about a boy struggling to find the courage to do the right thing when a severely burned girl spends a short time in his school.

Tom Bender is in seventh grade at St. Catherine's Catholic school. Tom has a crush on stunning Courtney Zisky who sits in the last seat of the last row in Mrs. Tracy's class. Tom who wasn't a strong reader, managed to move up into the same group as Courtney in sixth grade and that's when his crush really took off. Courtney is so pretty she could be in fashion magazines and sitting close to her made him realize how nice her hair smells. He often fantasized about how he could save Courtney's life but Courtney has never actually noticed Tom nor has she ever included him. He is after all, "a sweaty, fat kid with baggy pants..." But that was soon to change in seventh grade, with the arrival of  Jessica Feeney.

Since he can't get Courtney to notice him as a result of his superpowers, Tom decides that he will nominate her as a candidate for class president. However Tom's attention is drawn away from Courtney when Mrs. Tracy announces that a new girl will be arriving in their class that day. Mrs. Tracy tells that class that Jessica was badly burned in a fire and that she will be attending St. Catherine's while she has treatments for her burns at a nearby hospital. Mrs. Tracy warns that class about how Jessica looks but this does little to prepare Tom and his classmates for the reality of Jessica's appearance.

When Jessica arrives, Tom and his classmates are shocked and repulsed by Jessica's appearance. Tom is concerned that she is in pain and feels that "being in that skin would make you want to scream and scream until you died." Tom's friend, Jeff Hicks, is grossed out by Jessica's appearance. Tom gradually learns more about Jessica, that her family is from Boston and that she has had many skin grafts. Jessica has been to many hospitals and likely won't be at St. Catherine's very long.

Tom's mother suggests that it might help if he talked to Jessica. This suggestion causes Tom to reconsider Jessica and to begin to think about the reality of her situation. He begins to sneak glances at her during class and to realize that behind the melted and scarred skin is a person. He finds it hard to think that Jessica is like him and the other kids in the class. But for his classmates, Jessica becomes an object for speculation. Jeff and Rich seem more interested in how Jessica was burned and begin to make up stories about what happened. Tom wants to stop these conversations but doesn't really know how. He doesn't have the courage to speak up at first. In an attempt to divert the conversation away from gossip, he ends up revealing his crush on Courtney. Things become even worse when her classmates discover a photograph that Jessica is carrying around. She tells them that the photo is of her dead sister, Anne. This revelation only serves to fuel the outrageous rumours and gossip Tom's classmates spread throughout the school regarding what happened to Jessica.

While all this is going on Tom's friendship with Jeff begins to deteriorate. Jeff's parents broke up two years ago and he now lives with his mother who works long hours as a nurse. His father isn't really interested in spending time with him now that he has a new girlfriend. All this has made Jeff an angry boy who acts out. Tom loves the Cobra, a classic sports car which Jeff's uncle Chuck supposedly owns. Jeff invites Tom to see the car when his uncle comes down and to go for a ride in it. But when the uncle doesn't show, Tom begins to wonder if either really exist.

When Tom is asked by Mrs. Tracy to take Jessica's school work to her house, he is invited in by Jessica's father. Tom spends some time talking with Jessica and before he leaves her house, Jessica's father tells him what really happened to her. This meeting completely changes how Tom thinks about Jessica but can he help his classmates change too?

Discussion

Fire Girl is a story that asks young readers to consider how outward appearances often do not accurately reflect who a person is. Abbott demonstrates this best through the interactions between Jessica and Tom Bender. Jessica is terribly disfigured by her burns and everyone in the class is overwhelmed by her appearance. Tom's description is graphic.
"Jessica Feeney's face, the first thing everyone looked at, was like a mask. I looked at her, then away, and then back at her. I couldn't believe I was looking at the face of someone alive....Her lips were swollen. They nearly filled the space between her nose and chin. Her eyes peeked out from behind skin that looked melted....Her fingers were bent as if she were trying to grab something."

Yet days later, after searching about burn victims on the internet, Tom finds his perspective changing and sees her as more than just a burn victim. "I found that I started, in little bits, raising my head to look at her, but always when I knew she was turned the other way or couldn't see me. I discovered that if you didn't see the edge or her face or her hand or arm lying on the desk, she looked almost like any girl with dirty hair. It was sort of crushed and matted in the back. It almost began to feel as if there was a person in there."

By the end of the novel Tom has a very different view of Jessica. Tom sees past Jessica's outer disfigurement and recognizes that "Jessica was smart and nice and she'd been to lots of schools, so she knew how things worked." When Jeff beats him in nominating Courtney, Tom attempts to nominate Jessica but Mrs. Tracy doesn't hear him and he feels like he has failed. By the end of the novel, Tom, who initially found it difficult to hold Jessica's hand in class, now finds himself hugging her and crying when they say good bye. He even knows her eye colour.

Unlike Jessica, whom everyone can't help but notice, Tom is not noticed. He describes himself as a fat and sweaty kid and he's not popular. He's shy and doesn't speak up much. During the class campaign for president, Tom's mother "kept at me to get out there and get involved"  It is because of Jessica that Tom gradually begins to take steps to put himself out there. That first attempt is to do something kind for Jessica; first in trying to stop the wild gossip about her and then later on in an attempt to muster the courage to nominate her for class president. Although he doesn't completely succeed, these first steps are important. Jessica encourages him. "You really have to speak louder," she tells Tom.

Throughout the novel, Tom comes to a better understanding of what is important in life. At the beginning of the novel he is only interested in comics and the Cobra sports car. He wants to be popular like the beautiful Courtney Zisky and he wants to be noticed by her - hence the fantasies about being a superhero who rescues her.  He is ashamed of how he has behaved towards Jessica and how his classmates have treated her. But Jessica tells him "Every time I go in the hospital, I find out all over again about what really matters. This doesn't." Like Jessica, Tom starts to understand there are more important things in life.

Fire Girl is an excellent novel to explore the above themes in greater detail along with many more including those of  identity and the nature of relationships. Told in Tom Bender's voice, Fire Girl is a sensitive, emotional story. Tom's character is very authentic; he's immature, sometimes caring, sometimes insensitive, in other words, typical for boy in seventh grade. Abbott has written that Fire Girl came out of a real personal experience in grade seven that included "a girl like Jessica, a friend like Jeff, a class election, a Cobra..."

Book Details:
Fire Girl by Tony Abbott
New York: Little, Brown and Company     2006
145 pp.

Dare The Wind by Tracey Fern

This beautifully illustrated picture book tells the story of an unusual woman, Eleanor Prentiss, who (along with her husband as captain) set a record for the fastest journey from New York City, around the tip of Cape Horn and up to San Francisco. Generations ahead of her time, Eleanor Prentiss's determination to forge her own path in the world make her a role model for young women today.

Eleanor or Ellen as she was often called,  was born in 1814 in Marblehead, Massachusetts to John Prentiss, who was a captain of a coastal trading schooner. Prentiss taught his daughter how to navigate a schooner, perhaps because he did not have a son. Ellen spent many years navigating her father's merchant ships on voyages to China.

Josiah  and Ellen sailed together which was not unusual for husband and wife at in early 1800s. However, what was unusual was while Josiah was the captain, Ellen served as navigator on his ships. Perkins sailed The Oneida, a ship belonging to the firm, Grinnell and Minturn, in the China Trade.

The early 1800's were an exciting time with much progress in faster modes of travel. In 1849, transatlantic steamships like the SS Pacific with the American Collins Line were making the passage from New York to Liverpool in ten days. And just a day after the Perkins arrived in San Francisco, the first train travelled from New York City to Albany in five hours.

In 1849, the California Gold Rush began and thousands of American's traveled to the state to seek their fortune. Gold hunters could travel over the continental United States by wagon or horse or they could sail around Cape Horn at the tip of South America and up to California in the fast clipper ships. Many chose the latter because it was often a shorter trip, often only taking half the time. The shorter time meant more profits.


The owners of the Flying Cloud hired Josiah Perkins and his navigator wife Ellen. They made the journey from New York City to San Francisco in a remarkable 89 days and 21 hours. It was a journey that normally took at least four months or more. This record was due not only to the excellent design of the Flying Cloud, but also to the sharp navigation skills of Eleanor who had spent years studying ocean currents and meteorological data. Eleanor was a student of Mathew Fontaine Maury who had compiled the recorded ocean currents and weather conditions from the old log books of sailors. He then developed trade wind and storm and rain charts to aid navigators such as Eleanor Prentiss. Eleanor used this information to aid in the navigation around the tip of Cape Horn and up to San Francisco.

Tracey Fern recounts Eleanor's remarkable story in Dare The Wind and specifically her record setting voyage to San Francisco in 1851. Fern's account captures Ellen's daring spirit and determination to succeed in what was then solely a man's domain - the sea. The intensity of Eleanor's desire to live her life at sea, doing what she loved, navigating a ship is captured from the very beginning of the book.

"Ellen Prentiss had always felt the sea tug at her heart, strong as a full-moon tide. Her papa said that was because she was born with saltwater in her veins."

Fern's vivid prose is further enhanced by Emily Arnold McCully's gorgeous watercolour illustrations that convey both the movement and beauty of the sea and the sleek clipper ship. The back of this picture book contains a detailed Author's Note on Eleanor Prentiss as well as a short glossary of nautical terms.

Dare The Wind has recently been named an ALSC American Library Association 2015 Notable Children's Book.

Tracey Fern attended Harvard College where she studied history and biology and then studied law at Boston College Law School. She spent several years working as a real estate lawyer but it wasn't until she had her own children that she decided to try writing books.

Book Details:
Dare The Wind by Tracey Fern
New York: Margaret Ferguson Books Farrar Straus Giroux 2015

All The Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian

Ten days before the German army marched down the rue de Belleville in Paris, fourteen year old Maral Pegorian's family begins stockpiling food. Her parents know only too well the suffering during war, having survived the Armenian Massacres as children, during the first World War.

Maral and her sixteen year old brother Missak, live with their parents, Arniz and Garabed and her mother's sister, Auntie Shakeh in an apartment in Belleville, a suburb of Paris. People begin fleeing Belleville but Maral's parents, understand that marches supposedly to safety can lead to unexpected horrors. Maral's father states, "We're staying put. The last exodus we saw led straight to hell." Instead they decide to stay in their home to wait out the German occupation.  Their neighbourhood in Belleville is diverse, consisting of French from the Auvergne, Armenians, Greeks and Eastern European Jews.

When the Nazi tanks, armored trucks and black uniformed soldiers arrive, the Pegorians and their neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Kacherian and their sons, Zaven and Barkev and their daughter, Virginie, watch the ominous procession from the Kacherian's apartment.

In November, Missak, Maral, Zaven, Barkev and other young people including Henri and Jacqueline Sahadian, go to a rally at the Arc de Triomphe. The rally attended by thousands of lycee and university students is in remembrance of Armistice Day, November 11th, which the Germans are not keen to celebrate. When the Germans move to end the rally, shots are fired, and Jacqueline and Maral run to safety at the Armenian cathedral on Jean-Goujon.

Life continues on in Belleville despite the Occupation. Maral begins to find herself attracted to Zaven. She continues to attend the Lycee Victor Hugo with her friend Denise Rozenbaum who is Jewish. However, the school is not unaffected by the Nazis as Mademoiselle Levy, their Latin and Greek teacher is dismissed because she is Jewish. Missak begins working for the Resistance, chalking the walls in the neighbourhood with victory messages. He also decides to take a job as an apprentice in the printing shop. His passion is for drawing and not for school. Food grows scarce but the Pegorians are able to procure a laying hen from Maral's mother's cousins, the Nazarians who live in Alfortville.

Soon the Germans come to the rue de Belleville rounding up the Jewish families in the neighbourhood.  Maral suggests that the Lipski's leave their daughter, Claire with them, even though children are to go too. Maral goes to the Lipski's apartment  and they quickly agree to send Claire with the Pegorians. The Lipski's are taken, even though Sara Lipski is heavily pregnant, and Maral's friend, Denise Rozenbaum and her family are also rounded up.

Missak is shocked at what his family has done, telling them the Nazi's are filling buses on the rue de Belleville with the Jewish families to be taken to the  Velodrome d'Hiver. The Pegorians care for Claire but realize they will not be able to hide Claire for long. Maral brings food and clothing to the Lipskis at the Velodrome and they ask Maral to contact Sara's sister, Myriam in Nice. Missak arranges, through the resistance to get Clair out of Paris to her aunt in Nice. The Pegorians begin to realize they many have saved Claire's life when Missak tells his family the Jews are to be shipped to work camps in the east.

During the winter, Auntie Shakeh becomes terminally ill with tuberculosis. Dr. Odabashian tells Maral's mother that it is only a matter of time before she dies. Auntie Shakeh's death affects Maral's mother deeply and even after the forty days of mourning, her mother continues to be distraught and withdrawn.

Maral begins seeing Zaven that winter, after Shakeh's death, for a few hours every Sunday afternoon. Sometimes she has dinner at Zaven's home and one day his father, who is a shoemaker, offers to make Maral a pair of shoes. It is Barkev who traces her feet on a piece of cardboard and measures her for the shoes. Maral tells Zaven that she has always wanted to marry him and this leads Zaven to suggest they do so after she has finished her schooling. After exams are over in the spring, Zaven reveals that Barkev has been called up to report to the German's new mandatory work program, the service du travail obligatoire or STO. Zaven and Missak are too young to be called up but Barkev is twenty. Zaven tells Maral that Barkev is not going and that they are both going into hiding. By the following Sunday Missak informs Maral that both brothers have gone into hiding. It is a decision that will have dire consequences for both brothers and Maral, bringing devastation to both the Pegorian and the Kacherian families.

Discussion

All The Light There Was is a tale of war, love,suffering and irreplaceable loss in a community too familiar with the horrors of war. The focus is on the experience of one family in the close knit Armenian community in Paris, through the eyes of a young girl who comes of age during the Nazi Occupation of Paris. Yet the novel demonstrates the wide ranging effect of the war on virtually everyone, making Maral's narration feel authentic.

The stress of the occupation weakens and eventually kills Auntie Shakeh as it rekindles horrific memories of what she endured as a child in Mosul. The Kacherians lose both of their beloved sons, Zaven to typhus in the concentration camp, Buchenwald, Barkev as a result of the great psychological trauma endured at the same camp.Maral loses her dearly beloved Zaven, her future husband, as well as  her best friend, Denise Rozenbaum and her family. Claire Lipski never sees her mother and father and sibling again. If anything, the novel demonstrates the vast changes, the holes in the lives of those left behind. And as Maral writes, "The war was a great factory of suffering, all of it fashioned by human hands."  In the midst of all the tragedy is the forbearance of Maral's parents, especially her father who believes that having survived the tragedy of the Armenian genocide, they will survive this calamity too.

The first person narrator, Maral Pegorian is a bright, ambitious young girl who considers many possibilities for her life. She has known since she was a child that she wants to marry Zaven Kacherian, but as she tells him when he asks her about marriage, she also wants to complete her education and perhaps "go to the ecole normale and become a teacher."

 Maral is also faithful to her promise to wait for Zaven. She does struggle with her attraction to another Armenian man, Andon Shirvanian, but when she faces the reality of her increasing attraction, she ends the relationship, telling him "...The war will be over any day now. I'll be expecting Zaven back. And it's not right that I should let myself have these feelings about you. It's not fair to Zaven, or to you."

Kricorian has indicated that the genesis for this novel came about during her research into various resistance groups, among them the French Resistance, for her second novel. She discovered a group of French Resistance headed by the Armenian poet, Missak Manouchian who is mentioned in All The Light There Was. Maral's father considers Manouchian to be "a hero and a patriot." when he learns that he has been shot at Mont-Valerian.

To learn more about the Armenian experience in France, Kricorian read the memoir of the famous French Armenian actor, Charles Aznavour whose real name is Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian and she also interviewed numerous Armenians who had been in the resistance under Manouchian. Soviet Armenians who were captured by the Germans were forced to serve in the Wehrmacht and sent to France to build fortifications along the Atlantic coast. These Armenians, represented by the character Andon Shirvanian in the novel, often met the French Armenians at social functions hosted by the Aznavourians, who attempted to convince them to desert the German army. Shirvanian, like many Soviet Armenians faced a no-win situation. When he was captured by the Germans, he accepted an offer to enter into the German army. This is when Maral first meets him. However, when he was shipped back to Germany after the Allies land in France,  the train he was on was bombed. He fled to the resistance in Belgium but they could not take him in as the Allies had made a deal with Stalin to return all Soviet POWs.  As a soldier for the Soviet Union he was expected to die on the battlefield defending the motherland, and doing anything less than that, such as being taken prisoner would mean being shipped to a camp in Siberia. He decided to escape and find his way to France.

Andon creates a great deal of conflict for Maral in the novel. First she finds herself falling for him in the absence of Zaven whom she promised to be faithful. Then they meet again after they both know that Zaven will not be returning, but Maral now considers marriage to be not just about love but also about duty. After Barkev's death, Andon is still waiting but first Maral must come to terms with what he did during the war. This she does, as she explains to Jacqueline, "He was an Armenian prisoner of war who had a choice between dying and putting on a German uniform."  She now must face the disapproval of her brother, Missak and his wife, Jacqueline and possibly her father. Her sense of obligation to her son and her family are overwhelming. However, it is her father who helps her decide when he tells her that the responsibility for the decision is hers. He also tells her that in light of what he has experienced in his life, "you give people more room to do what is human." Maral's ability to do just that, allows her the chance to rebuild her life, while still honouring the memory of both Zaven and Barkev.

All The Light There Was could easily be a young adult novel, since the story is that of a young woman coming of age during World War II. The time period in the novel runs from 1940 when Maral Pergorian is fourteen years old turning fifteen to 1946 when she is twenty-one. The unappealing cover however is likely to miss this age group but will drawn in adult readers in search of a well written story with a satisfying ending.

Book Details:
All The Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt        2013
279 pp.

This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

"Each mind unique, each thought created for an instant and then broken apart to form new ones. You don't understand the unbearable beauty of being you."

This Shattered World is the second in the original Starbound series by this outstanding duo. The novel features two new characters but also ties into the first novel, These Broken Stars. which saw the wealthy Lilac LaRoux and soldier Tarver Merendsen thrown together after they crash land on a mysterious planet.

Readers will remember in These Broken Stars, Lilac LaRoux, heiress to the LaRoux fortune and soldier, Tarver Merendsen crash landed after the spaceship, Icarus,  was destroyed by an encounter with a dimensional rift. They are directed by mysterious "whispers" to an abandoned station on the planet but not before Lilac dies and is brought back to life. At the abandoned base they are able to communicate with the "whispers" who confirm they are responsible for Lilac's recovery and they have been the source of the visions. In their search for the station's power source, they see the upside-down letter V of the lambda - the insignia of LaRoux Industries which once operated the station.

Lilac senses that there is something unusual in the station. This is confirmed by their discovery in the basement of the station, of a circular door made to dilate like the iris of an eye as they both experience strange shivers and a coppery taste. Documents at the station mention a dimensional rift and attempts to recreate the rift using the super-orbital reflectors around the planet as well as on another planet, Avon, which Tarver was stationed on a few months earlier. They also mention the "extraction of test subjects" from the dimensional rift which are described as having telepathic abilities and are "phased life-forms, energy based, noncorporeal". Lilac realizes that "these beings, experimental test subjects to my father's teams, have led us across the wilderness to this spot...I wish we knew what they want."

Lilac also understands that the "whispers" are able to temporarily convert energy which is what they did to make her come alive again and that she needs to get behind the door to help them and save herself.  Using her name as the password, she opens the door and gets the power to the base running to send out a weak distress signal. In the power control room they discover the rift but also realize that the "whispers" or creatures are the power source for the station and are trapped in the power grid. With Lilac beginning to fade, Tarver destroys the dampening field, allowing the "whispers" to speak to him using his dead brother, Alec's form. They tell him that they came to Tarver's world out of curiosity but were imprisoned, unable to enter this world or return to their own and then became unwilling test subjects. They are all interconnected but somehow, LaRoux was able to separate them, making them weak.  Tarver is told that Lilac's distress signal is weakening them so he shuts it down. To save Lilac, Tarver jumps into the dimensional rift thereby closing it, creating a large energy surge. This ends the rift for the "whispers" and saves Lilac.

Lilac and Tarver are rescued by one of her father's ships where they learn that fifty thousand souls died in the Icarus accident. They are separated, inspected, monitored and interrogated. But during interrogation, Lilac and Tarver each play their part, Lilac "a spoiled heiress, too traumatized to remember anything" and Tarver, "a big, dumb soldier." in order to protect what they found on the planet. 

In This Shattered World, the story moves to the terraformed planet of Avon. Eighteen year old Captain Jubilee (Lee) Chase is in Molly Malone's a bar when she is kidnapped by a handsome, Irish rebel, Flynn Cormac, and taken into the swamps. At first Lee suspects this boy whom she nicknames "Romeo" is a spy for one of TerraDyn's competitors. Flynn takes her to his currach, forcing her to inhale petrol fumes which knock her unconscious and travels deep into the swamps, where the Irish rebels, known as the "Fianna" are hiding.

Flynn has abducted Captain Chase because she's the one soldier who's been on Avon the longest and she is the only soldier unaffected by what has become known as Avon's Fury - a condition that causes soldiers to "blank out" and murder civilians. Flynn also believes Jubilee Chase has vital information regarding a secret base that he has just discovered in the east. But when Flynn mentions the secret base, Jubilee has no idea what he's referring to. She knows of no base in the east and tells him so. Flynn wants to know why Avon is "generations behind" its terraforming schedule and since the planetary review is imminent, he wants to know who is behind the delay and how they are doing it. Flynn tells Lee that if Avon doesn't develop as it should, it will be unable to support a growing population and will never be represented on the Galactic Council.

When Flynn takes Jubilee to the location of the base, it is no longer there. As Flynn drags her to search for the missing base, Jubilee begins to experience strange sensations; she has a strong metallic taste in her mouth, she hears whispers and sees a pale green light in front of her. Suddenly she sees the facility surrounded by a high wire fence and a guard dressed in black looking at her. As she collapses, thinking Flynn has drugged her, Lee finds a mysterious object which she manages to hide in one of her boots.

Flynn doesn't know that Jubilee has seen the base and after she collapses he takes her to the rebel's caves deep in the swamp where he hides her in a small cave. Flynn knows rebels like his opponent McBride will murder the "trodairi" in retaliation for the execution of Flynn's older sister, Orla, who led an insurrection ten years ago. Flynn has another rebel, Martha, get word to the base that they have Captain Chase and want to trade her for supplies.

Despite his efforts to hide Jubilee, McBride is told of her presence and violently assaults her before Flynn can intervene. As she is recovering from her injuries, Jubilee learns the true identity of "Romeo", Flynn recognizes that Jubilee is in grave danger and decides to take her back to the base, However,  once they arrive at the rebel dock, Lee knocks out Flynn and using a currah escapes back to the TerraDyn base.

Jubilee is debriefed by Commander Antje Towers but she does not reveal the identity of the boy who kidnapped her nor the location of the rebel base. In an attempt to see what Towers might know Jubilee tells her that the boy was looking for information on a base in the east. This seems to trigger Commander Towers ending the debriefing, raising Jubilee's suspicions that Towers is knows more than she is letting on.

Meanwhile Flynn returns to the base to see Jubilee who tells him that one of her soldiers, Mori, killed a civilian as a result of the Fury and has been shipped out to Paradisa. Jubilee tells Flynn that she believes she is not susceptible to the Fury because she does not dream and that doctors do not know why this is. Flynn warns Jubilee that McBride is planning on waging war against the base but refuses to give her the names of the leaders of the rebellion.

Almost immediately after Flynn leaves her quarters, Bravo Barracks is blown up by a man, Davin Quinn killing thirty soldiers and injuring many others including Flynn. Flynn is taken to a makeshift sick bay filled with wounded soldiers, making the discovery of his identity almost certain. He tells Jubilee that it is very unlikely that Quinn willingly bombed the barracks as he preferred to remain uninvolved with the conflict. At this time Jubilee reveals that she saw the mysterious base in the east and that she found an ident chip on the island. They discover that the chip has the lambda symbol of LaRoux Industries on it.

When Flynn's face is posted on the base as the man who kidnapped Jubilee he escapes back to the rebel caves only to find that Jubilee has apparently murdered some of the rebels after experiencing the Fury. When McBride orders Flynn to kill Jubilee, he finds he cannot and they manage to escape. Both Jubilee and Flynn do not understand how she could have experienced the Fury. Jubilee tells Flynn that when she experienced the Fury she had a metallic taste in her mouth and that she felt dizzy and disoriented - the same as she felt when she found the LaRoux chip suggesting that somehow the Fury is connected to the chip, LaRoux Industries and the base. Jubilee wants to report the massacre at the base, but Flynn convinces her not to. The two escape back to the base, with Flynn hiding out at Sophia Quinn's home. As the two struggle to understand the connection between LaRoux Industries and the Fury and how this might be something that is being done to Avon, Jubilee makes the decision to contact her former captain, Tarver Merendsen, who served on Avon almost a year ago.Tarver agrees to come to Avon.

Jubilee is stunned to see that Tarver Merendsen is the expert TerraDyn is sending to evaluate the base's security in light of the recent rebel attacks. Jubilee and Flynn tell Merendsen that the Fury has been getting worse, affecting people who were previously immune and also attacking civilians, and that there is some kind of hidden facility in the east that is connected with LaRoux Industries.

When Tarver contacts his fiance, Lilac LaRoux asking for her help, Jubilee tries to convince her and Tarver that they need to bring what's happening on Avon to the attention of the military command. However Lilac reveals to Jubilee that she and Tarver discovered her father was involved in a major conspiracy which he covered up by destroying the planet they had crash landed on. She tells Jubilee that he had taken the "whispers" from the dimensional rift and they thought that they were destroyed along with the planet. Only a few months ago they realized that this was not the case. Tarver tells Jubilee they need to find proof of what is happening on Avon and they need to go public with it, while Lilac warns her to trust what she feels and not what she sees since the whispers can manipulate their minds.

Merendsen explains more about what happened to them on the planet when the Icarus crashed. He tells them that "LaRoux Industries opened a rift on that planet, a gateway between this dimension and another...this one permanently jammed open, and there were sentient creatures living there. LaRoux's scientists pulled these being through and trapped them." He also explains that the "whispers" as they call these beings, can change the planet they are on. On the planet he and Lilac crashed on, the planet's growth was sped up and the animals altered. This leads Flynn and Jubilee to consider that the whispers on Avon have done exactly the opposite - slowing down  the terraforming process and preventing any life from developing. 

As the conflict between the rebels and the military grows, Jubilee and Flynn set out to try to find the base and learn what is going on. Can Jubilee and Flynn discover the truth about the secret base and Avon amidst the growing violence between the military and the Fianna rebels on Avon?

Discussion

Once again Kaufman and Spooner have crafted a well written story that builds upon the events from the first novel. The authors seamlessly connect the two novels, although readers won't see the connection until they are almost halfway through the second book. Nevertheless this connection is done very well and is one of the strengths of the novels, creating a cohesive storyline that is both interesting and engaging. 

In this novel, Kaufman and Spooner tell their story using two narratives, that of Jubilee Chase, a well trained soldier from Verona and Flynn Cormac, a member of the Irish "Fianna" rebel group. In keeping with the structure of the first novel, interspersed is a narrative of Jubilee's story from when she was orphaned at age eight on the planet of Verona. This third narrative is important because it helps the reader understand events that happen at during the climax of the novel, filling in some of the back story.

The recipe in This Shattered World is much the same as in the first novel; two very different people who initially despise one another, are thrown together repeatedly, only to discover they both have redeemable qualities. Jubilee is a strong, motivated female character, determined to forge her own path, a "lifer" as she describes her career in the military. She has a daunting reputation as a steely trodairi, a soldier with a reputation for dealing harshly with the rebels. She has worked hard to put down the rebels, in part because it was rebellion in her city of November on Verona that killed her parents when she was eight. When she meets Cormac she finds him surprisingly thoughtful, more concerned about his people and his planet than making war. She'd "expected him to snap something stupid and noble, like most idealistic young rebels." She also expected him to murder her.

Likewise supporting character, Flynn Cormac, whose Irish ancestors settled Avon  discovers that Captain Jubilee is much different from what he expected.
"I don't know what I expected her to be like, but it wasn't this. The stories about her say she's made of steel -- she volunteered to come to Avon, the planet that drives men mad. She never runs, never hides, never loses. Stone-faced Chase, inhuman and deadly." But Flynn begins to realize that Jubilee is not inhuman and that she does feel fear.
 
Neither act as they are expected to. Jubilee does not provide her base commander with Flynn Cormac's identity and  when he returns to the base she doesn't turn him in. Flynn doesn't kill her or allow McBride to murder her, even after it seems Jubilee has killed his cousin, Sean Ahearn's nephew and other children. Eventually Jubilee and Flynn come to love one another, despite their very different backgrounds, mirroring the romance between Tarver and Lilac in the first novel.

Besides the story of Avon and the blossoming love between Jubilee and Flynn, Kaufman and Spooner continue to develop the storyline involving the sentient life form discovered in the dimensional rift on the planet in the first novel. Those beings are also on Avon where LaRoux attempted to recreate the dimensional rift. Jubilee manages to speak with one of the whispers who tells her that they have been with her for some time now, since she was a child on Verona. The whisper is what Jubilee thought was a ghost when she was a child. The whisper reveals that they were moved from Verona to Avon  and that they were forced to make the people on Verona kill her parents. They did not understand what they were doing because death does not exist for them and were told that if they did this they would be sent home. Instead they were sent to Avon by Laroux where they were tortured.  The pain they suffer has driven most of the whispers to become different, "to fall into violence and despair, into pain" causing harm to the people on Avon. This whisper however, understands humans better because of its relationship with Jubilee. It recognizes that humans are different -- they can be individuals but for the whispers, to be alone is agony as they are made to be connected to each other.Concerned that the other whispers will harm humans, the whisper convinces Jubilee that she must destroy the base which is being powered by their own energy. This will destroy them but force them to keep their knowledge of the human world secret.

This Shattered World is another fine novel by this amazing duo. Fans of science fiction will find a compelling mixture of romance, suspense and action. I can't wait for the next novel!

Book Details:
This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Los Angeles: Hyperion     2015
390 pp.