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literarystrawberry's review
4.0
Actual rating: 3.5. It took me a little while to get into it, and then there were a few things about the wrap-up that I thought were a little wonky , but overall I really did enjoy the characters and the quirkiness of the world.
Spoiler
like, how exactly did Madam Guardian just "scoot" past them in that last confrontation? Why does the guard believe them and run away with absolutely no evidence when Tomas tells him the Bartizan is on fire? (It /is/, but there's no way for the guard to know that at that point.) What's the point of saying earlier that they literally "throw away the key" for these prisoner cells if they have a master key that unlocks all of them? Why doesn't anyone even suggest trying to save the other prisoners on the other levels after they get Parminter's mom out, but just leave the place to burn? (I get that there wasn't much time, but after they established that there were at least two or three other people alive that they /did/ let out while looking for Parminter's mom, and that was just on Level 3, it seems reasonable to assume there could be people on other levels who are also still alive, and for me it undermined the sense of relief of them finding her mom and getting out when I was thinking "Wait... So are those other people just going to burn alive now?" It would have been nice to at least have one of the characters say "Wait, shouldn't we make sure everyone's out?" and then maybe have another character say that the other levels are empty, or something.) And this isn't as much of a problem, but for all that talk at the beginning about how dear of a friend Andronicus is, how come he isn't even mentioned in the last chapter, and the last sentence is just about Maximillian and Parminter?the_fabric_of_words's review
5.0
I gotta admit; the cover did not entice me to read. In fact, this one sat at the bottom of the TBR pile for four entire library "check-out" periods -- of 3 weeks each -- before I could gather the courage to crack the spine.
Because my daughter loved it! She's also trained to handle the Madagascar hissing cockroaches at the local Zoo for educational presentations, so there's that. I had a roach whisperer urging me on.
I'm not that brave (when it comes to roaches, my family will attest I have one heck of a scream) and opening the book's cover was a challenge. But once I did, I devoured (?!?) the story in one night.
Max's tale starts when he tries to show he's a good ...roach ... by offering shelter to two human children, Kaitlin and Jonno, being hunted down by the SilverSeeds, the crew of the notorious "Silver Ship" that takes kiddos to a new land, never to be seen again, every so many years. It maintains population in the enclosed city.
Immediately my ...antennae? ... knew something was up.
You learn Max was a boy until he spun a chrysalis and became a ...giant roach. And there's a lot of them, apparently, the result of a mutation wealthy residents introduced to their DNA to be able to survive a coming plague. (NOTE: As a parent, I did not buy that, but it's sci-fi / fantasy, so be prepared to throw your sense of reality out the window.) They wanted the survival qualities of the roach, but not the...final form.
They also erected a barrier around the city to keep the infection from getting in. Or, as experienced readers of science fiction will clue into immediately, keep their own iron-fisted control over residents by preventing them from getting out. Except on the SilverShips. (Antennae quivering yet?)
Max saves the two children and ends up fighting and dragging an Enforcer into his nest as well. But the kids don't realize Max is trying to save them. There are also Night Roaches who eat people, although Max is not one of them, and the girl -- Kaitlin -- mistakenly frees the Enforcer, thinking he's Jonno, as she tries to escape Max's nest. Turns out, the Enforcer IS her brother -- her older brother, Tomas, who vanished a few years ago.
Tomas dutifully hauls his younger sister back to the SilverShip, and the plot as to who the kids really are, and why they're being removed from this post-plague world on the SilverShips slowly unfolds, all while putting Max in increasing danger.
I won't spoil how it ends, just know there were tears, and I never expected to cry over a roach!
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: http://amb.mystrikingly.com/
Because my daughter loved it! She's also trained to handle the Madagascar hissing cockroaches at the local Zoo for educational presentations, so there's that. I had a roach whisperer urging me on.
I'm not that brave (when it comes to roaches, my family will attest I have one heck of a scream) and opening the book's cover was a challenge. But once I did, I devoured (?!?) the story in one night.
Max's tale starts when he tries to show he's a good ...roach ... by offering shelter to two human children, Kaitlin and Jonno, being hunted down by the SilverSeeds, the crew of the notorious "Silver Ship" that takes kiddos to a new land, never to be seen again, every so many years. It maintains population in the enclosed city.
Immediately my ...antennae? ... knew something was up.
You learn Max was a boy until he spun a chrysalis and became a ...giant roach. And there's a lot of them, apparently, the result of a mutation wealthy residents introduced to their DNA to be able to survive a coming plague. (NOTE: As a parent, I did not buy that, but it's sci-fi / fantasy, so be prepared to throw your sense of reality out the window.) They wanted the survival qualities of the roach, but not the...final form.
They also erected a barrier around the city to keep the infection from getting in. Or, as experienced readers of science fiction will clue into immediately, keep their own iron-fisted control over residents by preventing them from getting out. Except on the SilverShips. (Antennae quivering yet?)
Max saves the two children and ends up fighting and dragging an Enforcer into his nest as well. But the kids don't realize Max is trying to save them. There are also Night Roaches who eat people, although Max is not one of them, and the girl -- Kaitlin -- mistakenly frees the Enforcer, thinking he's Jonno, as she tries to escape Max's nest. Turns out, the Enforcer IS her brother -- her older brother, Tomas, who vanished a few years ago.
Tomas dutifully hauls his younger sister back to the SilverShip, and the plot as to who the kids really are, and why they're being removed from this post-plague world on the SilverShips slowly unfolds, all while putting Max in increasing danger.
I won't spoil how it ends, just know there were tears, and I never expected to cry over a roach!
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: http://amb.mystrikingly.com/
missmeddler's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
astergw's review
4.0
A really sweet read, with a solid scifi premise and compelling characters. The shifting narrators were slightly hard to follow, but because the characterizations were strong, I wasn't completely thrown. Overall a fast-paced and sweet story.
jillcd's review
4.0
This was intriguing. I am not normally a sci-fi fan but this kept me engaged to the very end. Besides being well written, I loved the perspective of the story; it was a delightful way to be included as the plot unraveled. Great for grades 4/5 and up.
sockielady's review
4.0
Another wonderful book by Angie Sage! I'm a big fan of her Septimus Heap series, so I was overjoyed to win an ARC of this book courtesy of HarperChildrens and Katharine Tegen Books.
The world-building is excellent, and you are immediately immersed in the gray dystopia of the city of Hope. Despite being a six-foot human cockroach, Maximilian Fly, the main character, is a gentle, shy individual who justs wants to live his life in peace. But on the night the story opens, Maximilian sees two young "wingless" humans -- humans whose DNA lacks the cockroach mutation that affects a portion of Hope's population -- fleeing from the Enforcers, and he decides to help them. This act of kindness turns his life inside-out.
Maximilian's way of speaking takes a little bit of getting used to, as it is somewhat stilted and oddly formal. But as odd as he is, and despite being a large sentient cockroach, he is a character of great pathos. You will be rooting for him soon enough. And while the book is written for pre-teens, older children and adults will like it, too (although they may pick up on the clues that get dropped sooner than the younger ones will. Clues to what, you say? Nope, I'm not telling.).
The novel is all first-person narration, with Maximilian and four other characters as the narrators. I don't usually have an issue with this sort of narration, but I don't think it was handled as well as it could have. Most books that switch narrators will just put the name of the narrator at the beginning of their section. Instead of names, this book assigned an icon to each narrator and put the icons at the beginning of each narrator's section. There were two problems that I had with this format: 1. The five icons were small, and not all of them were distinct enough to be able to recognize them easily (if you read quickly, it was too easy to either get the icon at the beginning of each section mixed up with another icon, or miss it completely); and 2. There was a key to the icons at the front of the book, so each time you encountered a new icon (or if you forgot which icon went with which narrator) you had to go back to the key. It would have been so much easier to just use the narrators' names.
Other than the issue with the icons, I truly enjoyed this book, and I was honestly hoping that it would be a series rather than a stand-alone novel. I hope that Ms. Sage considers writing another book featuring the gentleman cockroach Maximilian Fly. He's too good a character for just one book.
The world-building is excellent, and you are immediately immersed in the gray dystopia of the city of Hope. Despite being a six-foot human cockroach, Maximilian Fly, the main character, is a gentle, shy individual who justs wants to live his life in peace. But on the night the story opens, Maximilian sees two young "wingless" humans -- humans whose DNA lacks the cockroach mutation that affects a portion of Hope's population -- fleeing from the Enforcers, and he decides to help them. This act of kindness turns his life inside-out.
Maximilian's way of speaking takes a little bit of getting used to, as it is somewhat stilted and oddly formal. But as odd as he is, and despite being a large sentient cockroach, he is a character of great pathos. You will be rooting for him soon enough. And while the book is written for pre-teens, older children and adults will like it, too (although they may pick up on the clues that get dropped sooner than the younger ones will. Clues to what, you say? Nope, I'm not telling.).
The novel is all first-person narration, with Maximilian and four other characters as the narrators. I don't usually have an issue with this sort of narration, but I don't think it was handled as well as it could have. Most books that switch narrators will just put the name of the narrator at the beginning of their section. Instead of names, this book assigned an icon to each narrator and put the icons at the beginning of each narrator's section. There were two problems that I had with this format: 1. The five icons were small, and not all of them were distinct enough to be able to recognize them easily (if you read quickly, it was too easy to either get the icon at the beginning of each section mixed up with another icon, or miss it completely); and 2. There was a key to the icons at the front of the book, so each time you encountered a new icon (or if you forgot which icon went with which narrator) you had to go back to the key. It would have been so much easier to just use the narrators' names.
Other than the issue with the icons, I truly enjoyed this book, and I was honestly hoping that it would be a series rather than a stand-alone novel. I hope that Ms. Sage considers writing another book featuring the gentleman cockroach Maximilian Fly. He's too good a character for just one book.
annarella's review
5.0
There's a long list of adjective I could use to define this book: engrossing, atmospheric, dystopic, enthralling, and entertaining but, to put it in a nutshell, it's a very good book .
I loved the gentle Maximillian as much as I loved his young friends. All characters are well developed and you cannot help rooting for the good ones.
The world building is amazing and full of details, the plot is fast paced and flaws without any interruption.
A very good and fun read, I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for this ARC, all opinions are mine
I loved the gentle Maximillian as much as I loved his young friends. All characters are well developed and you cannot help rooting for the good ones.
The world building is amazing and full of details, the plot is fast paced and flaws without any interruption.
A very good and fun read, I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for this ARC, all opinions are mine
m_dot_p's review
adventurous
funny
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
arwombat's review
3.0
I thought this book was okay, with one major disappointment. While Maximillian was a likeable character, he was oddly ignorant about basic details about his world and doesn't seem curious to learn. We had to learn from Parminter his whole life story and critical information, on various occasions. This is problematic because we are effectively being told his whole backstory partway through the book instead learning it through flashbacks.
At the beginning of the book, you barely know enough about the world to understand what is happening, and by then halfway through, you suddenly learn much more about the world that the main character does, giving no chance for inference or gradual discovery. After another bunch of information is thrown at you, there is almost no point in reading the rest of the book, because you've learned so much about the backstory and it is pretty easy to infer the happy ending at the point. I thought it would be much better if Maximillian and Katie knew more from the start, not much more, just slightly more, and so you can gradually infer how they are related . Then maybe, when Maximillian meets Tomas at Parminter's house, they figure it out on their own instead of Parminter telling them . A lot of the information Parminter tells us could be inferred pretty easily or learned much later in the book and I think it would be much more engaging.
At the beginning of the book, you barely know enough about the world to understand what is happening, and by then halfway through, you suddenly learn much more about the world that the main character does, giving no chance for inference or gradual discovery. After another bunch of information is thrown at you, there is almost no point in reading the rest of the book, because you've learned so much about the backstory and it is pretty easy to infer the happy ending at the point. I thought it would be much better if Maximillian and Katie knew more from the start, not much more, just slightly more, and so you can gradually infer