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A review by katykelly
The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick
5.0
In looking for a copy of 'Freak the Mighty', I discovered that the author had written several others for the age group, and with World Book Day today, thought that this looked both appropriate and rather different.
I finished this in a couple of sittings in one day, it was very hard to stop reading once I'd started - I really wanted to know what was coming!
As other reviewers have described it, this is a dystopia for children, it could well be their introduction to the genre - a world where the Big Shake has, decades ago decimated both the human population and the planet's environment, leaving ruins of buildings, smog and acid rain, and little of culture left for the survivors to fight over. Many people use mindprobes to escape the drudgery and poverty of their real lives. It's a dog-eat-dog world.
Spaz (the only name he is ever given) is a teenage boy living on his own in one segmented part of a large city, having been kicked out of his family unit years before, his epilepsy seen as a danger and aberration. He makes a living by 'taxing' other people for a gang leader, until one such shakedown results in him meeting an old man, a 'gummy' called Ryter, who hides pages of a 'book' and sparks something in Spaz that makes him come back to him, a link to a forgotten world.
This was superb, much better than many similarly themed books written for adults. I was reminded of The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Hunger Games, 1984, films like Equilibrium - it's the sort of genre where many of the same ideas are reused, but to differing effects. And this is the youngest readership I've ever experienced the ideas being written for.
It's quite a dark read for a 9 or 10 year old, with poverty and violence at the heart of the story, life is NOT fair and endings are NOT always sunny.
Spaz is rather endearing - and the little gang of friends he amasses around him for his quest (of course there has to be a quest, it IS a children's book) is varied and well-developed, each has their own story as well.
Philbrick creates his hell on Earth very well indeed, I could see the grey skies, the rats, the rubbish, the despair and chaos, and conversely the idyll of Eden, a futuristic heavenly dream of a floating paradise for 'proovs', those born genetically engineered to perfection.
The author creates a Clockwork Orange-like language for Spaz and his society, one that helps set it apart from our world, and he doesn't spell everything out for the reader, you do have to work out what some of the vocabulary means yourself. I liked this.
The idea of a disintegrating culture, that of the title, and referenced throughout the book, usually by Ryter quoting famous (though he himself knows he is forgetting) novelists and poets is at the heart of the story, alongside Spaz's own family drama. It's a lesson that a Year 5 or 6 class will find quite shocking, the tearing apart of a culture, the lawlessness and chaos of a world with no shared history.
In short chapters, this would make a very suitable class read, and ideal really for a teacher to discuss with a class (no swearing or sex but there is violence and peril).
Powerful, darkly funny, disturbing but intelligent young dystopia story, that ends with hope but will leave readers with the story playing on their minds.
I finished this in a couple of sittings in one day, it was very hard to stop reading once I'd started - I really wanted to know what was coming!
As other reviewers have described it, this is a dystopia for children, it could well be their introduction to the genre - a world where the Big Shake has, decades ago decimated both the human population and the planet's environment, leaving ruins of buildings, smog and acid rain, and little of culture left for the survivors to fight over. Many people use mindprobes to escape the drudgery and poverty of their real lives. It's a dog-eat-dog world.
Spaz (the only name he is ever given) is a teenage boy living on his own in one segmented part of a large city, having been kicked out of his family unit years before, his epilepsy seen as a danger and aberration. He makes a living by 'taxing' other people for a gang leader, until one such shakedown results in him meeting an old man, a 'gummy' called Ryter, who hides pages of a 'book' and sparks something in Spaz that makes him come back to him, a link to a forgotten world.
This was superb, much better than many similarly themed books written for adults. I was reminded of The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Hunger Games, 1984, films like Equilibrium - it's the sort of genre where many of the same ideas are reused, but to differing effects. And this is the youngest readership I've ever experienced the ideas being written for.
It's quite a dark read for a 9 or 10 year old, with poverty and violence at the heart of the story, life is NOT fair and endings are NOT always sunny.
Spaz is rather endearing - and the little gang of friends he amasses around him for his quest (of course there has to be a quest, it IS a children's book) is varied and well-developed, each has their own story as well.
Philbrick creates his hell on Earth very well indeed, I could see the grey skies, the rats, the rubbish, the despair and chaos, and conversely the idyll of Eden, a futuristic heavenly dream of a floating paradise for 'proovs', those born genetically engineered to perfection.
The author creates a Clockwork Orange-like language for Spaz and his society, one that helps set it apart from our world, and he doesn't spell everything out for the reader, you do have to work out what some of the vocabulary means yourself. I liked this.
The idea of a disintegrating culture, that of the title, and referenced throughout the book, usually by Ryter quoting famous (though he himself knows he is forgetting) novelists and poets is at the heart of the story, alongside Spaz's own family drama. It's a lesson that a Year 5 or 6 class will find quite shocking, the tearing apart of a culture, the lawlessness and chaos of a world with no shared history.
In short chapters, this would make a very suitable class read, and ideal really for a teacher to discuss with a class (no swearing or sex but there is violence and peril).
Powerful, darkly funny, disturbing but intelligent young dystopia story, that ends with hope but will leave readers with the story playing on their minds.