The Tomorrow series by John Marsden, 4-7

Wow, what a series. I reviewed the first book here and then the first three as a set here. Today, a (nearly) spoiler-free review of the last four.

Darkness Be My Friend begins at a transition for Ellie and her friends. They're safe, free. They have access to medical care, counseling, leisure, and food. Yet, at the same time, it's not all right. For example, Ellie has had an uncomfortable and unwanted sexual experience that she's not dealing with very well, she's pushing away friends for doing the same things she did in wartime, the group breaks down into chaos during speaking engagements, and at odd moments, fear creeps into everyday situations and threatens to tear at everyone's sanity.

Despite all of this, it's easier, safer to be here--so why would the Wirrawee kids go back into the war zone? Ellie says:

What we needed was a two-sided badge that said 'Mature' on one side and 'Childish' on the other. Then at any moment we could turn it to whatever side we felt like being and the adults could treat us accordingly.

But what's driving them is loyalty: to each other, to their families, to their former way of life.

There's a sense that this series is timeless; the war has knocked out electricity, so electronic devices from cell phones to computers are out of commission, and only occasionally are there batteries for a radio. The series was first published in 1995 (and, of course, written earlier) and continued to come out over the next few years. Every now and then we get a sense of the time scope--there's a reference to electronic mail early in the series, later e-mail. But without television, radio, and the Internet, after loss of watches, sometimes, and periods of unconsciousness, the sense of date is lost. Time is passing, but it is no longer organized by calendars.

Time's passage is evident, too, in the emotional and psychological focus. Now, the focus is less on questioning oneself, less on purpose, less on whether or not to be involved in war; there is no choice, and perhaps there was never a choice. Instead, the characters delve further into the questions of how they got here. By mid-book, it's easy to see the psychological change--the fun, if it ever was, is gone; the fear is all. Adults supposed to protect them have betrayed them. The danger is greater, and failure more likely. But, the questions are not so much about will I or won't I, but what will I live for--or die for.


By the fifth book, Burning for Revenge there is a grim awareness that they have no future plans. They are, perhaps, not long for this world. There is no route back. Sometimes there are dreams; they still want to see the world, but are painfully aware that they weren't paying much attention to it.

Ellie's group happens into situation where they can make major damage, and try to leverage that for rescue. Then, while in hiding, they discover bands of free children in nearby Stratton, doing what their group had been doing--perhaps more successfully at times--and regain a sense that they are not entirely alone. At the same time, they cross an invisible line. They may still look like kids on the outside, but they're adults on the inside, and are becoming more self-aware. They've come to terms with physical damage, but are finding it harder and harder to rebound from psychological damage; still, recognizing this gives them the first glimpse that there could be a future, an after.


 
In The Night is for Hunting, as you might have predicted, Ellie's group gets involved with the free kids. Wrangling them isn't easy, and not only because the children have been living independently for so long. They have to care for others again. They have to integrate the children's unpredictable behavior, and have to ensure their safety. And hardest of all, the must recognize for themselves that their own childhoods are over and can never be regained.


The seventh and final book in the series, The Other Side of Dawn, is the final battle. They are close, so close, to the end, and the question is whether they will live through it. Circumstances are dire and they are in danger as never before. Ellie, in particular, has to face the possibility that everything she loves is gone, look death in the eye, and figure out the aftermath--if there is one. The saying is that the darkest hour is just before the dawn, and that holds true in this book. The saying, though, implies that dawn will come, and never mentions the shadows that follow.


Marsden wrote a follow-up series, The Ellie Chronicles. I haven't decided whether or not I will pick those up, because I thought that the series wrapped up where it should have, and I have a bit of epilogue fatigue. (Generally, I think stories should stop before the epilogue, or integrate some of what's perceived to be needed in the epilogue into the last chapters.) I really enjoyed reading this series, and I definitely recommend it if you are a Hunger Games fan--particularly if you are a Team Katniss fan! Ellie and Katniss would probably be good friends, and they'd want to be on the same side. This series has as much character focus as plot focus, too, if that's what you're after.

The Tomorrow series by John Marsden

The Dead of the Night by John Marsden and The Third Day, the Frost (also released as A Killing Frost) (Tomorrow series)

I reviewed the first book in this series here the other day, and today I'm going to (re)review the first three as a set; they all come in around 200 pages, and while each book has its own story arc, I perceive a larger arc in these first three as a group, at least compared to the beginning of the fourth book, which I'm on right now.

After the chunk at the beginning of the first book that sets up our understanding of the teens as everyday Australians in the early 1990s (though there are very few clues as to the time period--I'm putting a few references together with the publication date of the books), there is a certain emotional sameness in Tomorrow, When the War Began; The Dead of the Night; and The Third Day, the Frost. Ellie and her friends are, in this stretch, trying to figure it all out. When they rebel, they really rebel, creating major headaches for the enemy, but as they spiral around their interest in and repugnance toward the war, they also circle greater and greater consequences. Still, for most of the first three books, the group still sees some tiny sheen on the whole thing, like it's not quite real--like it's almost fun, almost a lark if you turn your head and squint a little.

I am a sucker for wars, dystopia, peril, kids figuring out adult things, and the Tomorrow series has all of it. But one thing that strikes me about these books is that I feel very strongly that the teenagers are still teenagers; they talk like real teenagers. They have perceptions and prejudices and are questioning. They have short-lived romances and petty squabbles. They are smart--and it's tied in to who they are.

Marsden doesn't let up on the reality and ugliness of the war, but he also doesn't let Ellie and the others slide into inhumanity, even as they wonder whether they've crossed a line somewhere; big things and small things happen in turn, a reminder that even in turmoil, small gestures can be very much appreciated.

I am reading the Australian versions (and providing images as I can get them); in the U.S., they're published by Scholastic. I've labeled these with the title of the first in the series so that it's easier to find them, if I want to look back later!

New(er) Books: All We Know of Love; Tomorrow When the War Began

I can't write about Mockingjay quite yet; I'm not sure how to hide any spoilers! But in the meantime, two recent reads, and in one more 2004 transfer, I'll be ready to move on to 2005.

The first: All We Know of Love by Nora Raleigh Baskin (Candlewick)
I had an advanced copy of this that languished and languished on my shelf. The cover on that copy wasn't anything special, and I confess that the particular design of Candlewick's advanced copies doesn't always make me excited to move a book to the top of the pile (even though I think that they're the most clear on what the book is about and when it will be released). So, at last, it was time to put a new book next to the bathtub, and I grabbed this one.

What I found inside this deceptively slim book was a story with a lot of heartache, and yet one that, more than anything I've read in a long time, approaches heartache from a very real teenage perspective. Natalie and Sarah were fast friends, dreaming always of their future loves, and then Natalie's mom leaves. After that, Natalie is wrapped up in Adam, heart and body, and when she thinks she's pregnant, she finally gets on a bus and goes looking for her mother. She's not thinking clearly, but people help her through her travels, and we get glimpses into some of the heartache of the people who reach out to her.  In between the everyday perils of travel, there's a solid look at friendship, first love, and family loss.



Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden (Scholastic)
A friend of mine in Australia first turned me on to John Marsden by sending a copy of So Much to Tell You, and I think she might have sent me this as well, because I have an Aussie version. It languished, too; not because I didn't want to read it, but because I simply had so many promised reads to work on. On Sunday night, I cheated on my reading list and opened the cover at 11 p.m.--and read all but the last 25 pages or so, and I stopped only because I couldn't keep my eyes open (and, well, work calls in the morning).

Ellie narrates the story of a group of teenagers who gather for a last days of summer camping trip. They explore a wilderness bounded by steep cliffs, rumored to be impassable. There, in a forest, they find a hidden retreat. Just before they're ready to return, squadrons of airplanes zoom overhead--and when they emerge  from the mountains, their families are gone and their town is under attack. Now, they have to decide what they're going to do, and what the consequences of action or inaction might be.

And frustration! This is just the first in a massive series that's a movie now, too, which I really, really hope gets a U.S. release. I can't stop watching the trailer:

The trailer emphasizes the war-as-inevitable aspect of this, though, which is something more of a dilemma in the book. And for this blog post, I've tagged it sf to mean science fiction, though I don't like that label so much; I just mean to note that this is a speculation story rather than one that's attempting to reflect what is. Whatever the film or label, I heartily recommend this book for any Hunger Games fans who need another high-stakes story to read.