Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Zenith by Julie Bertagna



Of course, similar to many of our young adult dystopias, Julie Bertagna writes of environmental disastors.

In Exodus, she wrote about the "Century of Storm," Global warming took over and the ice-caps melted and the oceans rose, threatening to overwhelm the island of Wing in the North Atlantic.
.
Exodus ends with Mara forming an alliance with Fox, the grandson of New Mungo's founder, who had no idea about the conditions outside of his environment and how his world was built. Fox stays to rebel from the inside, and Mara leaves, taking Tree-nesters, urchins and refugees on one of the great white supply ships.

Exodus begins with Mara on the ocean and Fox back in the tower city. A new character is introduced, Tuck, a "gypsea", who lives in the floating city of rusty boats known as Pomperoy.Because Mara's ship is basically on auto, her ship ploughs through Pomperoy capsizing and killing many gypseas This sets the whole flotilla off in pursuit of the white ship.

Mara's goal is Greenland, her theory is that it has not sunk; but been liberated it from its weight and it is now a safe haven with a huge freshwater lake in the middle. Unfortunately, it has its own people do not welcome the newcomers.

The white ship is trapped and Mara and her friends are treated as slaves on the auction block when they reach Greenland.

As I identified with the book, reading by the light of a candle due to snow induced blackout, this book definitely kept me turning each page. And now, I anxiously await the final book.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Reading Next: Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
(put on hold when I grabbed Zenith)

No comments: