The Blue Owlary

The Young World by Chris Weitz 
Published by Brown Books for Young Readers, Little, Brown Book Group on July 29, 2014 
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Paranormal,Science Fiction, Young Adult 
Pages: 384 
Format: eARC 
Goodreads 
 

After a mysterious Sickness wipes out the rest of the population, the young survivors assemble into tightly run tribes. Jefferson, the reluctant leader of the Washington Square tribe, and Donna, the girl he’s secretly in love with, have carved out a precarious existence among the chaos. But when another tribe member discovers a clue that may hold the cure to the Sickness, five teens set out on a life-altering road trip to save humankind.

The tribe exchanges gunfire with enemy gangs, escapes cults and militias, braves the wilds of the subway and Central Park…and discovers truths they could never have imagined.

Admit it you saw the cover and you got excited. It’s okay, so did I. In fact when I saw the cover I KNEW I had to read this one. Lately I’ve been noticing that that a post world society, aka a post apocalyptic world, has become in vogue. Same say it’s due to the Hunger Games and Divergent. However, there has always been books about this. One of my favorites being Atlas Shrugged.

In fact there are dozens of TV shows on this too. (I’ve spent like the last week binge watching. I will post reviews soon.)

My point being that with such a growing market for post apocalyptic it’s hard for an author to stand out. In order to draw us in then authors have to try new tricks. Some work…and SOME DON’T. The Young World sadly falls into the second pile. Which again sucks because look at that cover!

What did the author do differently but didn’t work?

Well she made her narrators aware that they were narrating and not in the Nick Carraway Great Gatsby sort of way. I’m not sure how to describe it. 

You know how in House of Cards the Main Character turns to the camera and starts talking to us. It’s actually one of the things I very much like about the show. However in this book it just comes of weird. I can’t click with any of the Character because it feels like they are in my face all the damn time!

Jeez.

I don’t want the Characters, who are all supposed to be trying to be trying to make it, wasting time explaining things to me that I could figure out on my own. I don’t want to be hand held through the book just let me read.

Other Issues.

If Donna, said like one more time in here POV I was going to lose it. Really like come on like that so like annoying.  

The flashbacks sometimes just blended into the present. I had no clue what was going on and where we were in the story at times.

Also I’m not sure if this would count as insta-love, but Jefferson went from trying to stop this girl W*tch from shooting his head off to making out with her in about 0-second flat.

And just in case you weren’t already annoyed by this point. We had to deal with people randomly falling in love and dying an giving unrealistic speeches….and then dying…again.