Reviews tagging 'Death'

Ground Zero by Alan Gratz

8 reviews

yesica's review

Go to review page

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

What I liked:

I liked how this book didn't shy away from the horrible ways people died in the towers.

What I didn't like:

I didn't enjoy Reshmina's parts as much as Brandon's. Honestly I would have been content with a book more focus on the events of 9/11 and yet its also nice to see the aftermath of said events years later.
The ending of the book felt too simplistic in its "CLEARLY this is what we should do to fix all of our problems" type of explanation.

Overall:

I really did enjoy this book and if it weren't for Reshmina's parts I would have given this a 5 stars. This book should be in every schools reading curriculum it's a great introduction for kids to learn about 9/11.

Quote:

"Look! All that shooting, all that fighting, and for what? Neither side won anything, and neither side lost anything - except lives."

- page 159

Content Warnings

eelsmac's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I was rather prepared to not really like this book (I'm not the biggest fan of Gratz - I know kids, other teachers and librarians really like him but his style is just not my favorite), so I was pleasantly surprised at how much Gratz invested in the moral/ethical questioning that he gets to at the end of the novel. Some of the military details probably should be fact checked,

one of the main characters claims to have been in Afghanistan as a SF soldier for 10 years - maybe that is rotating through multiple deployments over the course of 10 years, but "...been here for 10 years..." does sort of imply continuous...

I would imagine some of the other random details about US military operations, and different weapons/technology etc used by US, Afghan National Army and Taliban, as well as the logistics of US/ANA collaborations could use a fact check, and quite frankly some of those details could be omitted anyways because they are niche Easter eggs that don't really serve the plot.
I both like and dislike the constant back and forth between Brandon's story of escaping the North Tower and Reshmina's story from late-War in Afghanistan in Kunar Province. It's a bit too much of a constant back and forth, I think if the chapters were a bit more consolidated it would feel less jarring/forced.

That being said, there were some things that I think are unique to this particular j-fiction (juvenile fiction) novel that are worthy of some praise. Number 1, this book connects 9/11 with the Global War on Terror in a meaningful way - I am not talking about

the fact that the solider that Reshmina helps is later revealed to be Brandon, that is pretty predictable for Gratz and I get why it's necessary in j-fiction but it does make me roll my eyes a bit

, but just getting to the idea that we invaded two countries in part as a reaction to 9/11 and a desire for revenge. Gratz takes it a step further and discusses the futility of invading Afghanistan as a larger historical patter (hello graveyard of empires), and the increasing struggle to find reasons to stay and a way to leave. He does, but barely so, address that there were some deeper issues around the conditions that led to al Qaeda's anti-US terrorism, including 9/11, and then tendency of Americans to struggle to imagine a non-US-centric worldview, which is a lot more than many j-fiction does. It could have been developed more, but I think for j-fiction it's probably as good as it's going to get in terms of addressing many of the nuances that caused 9/11. Number 2, Gratz does not fall into the typical j-Fic tendency to pretend that children were not exposed to the visual carnage. Interestingly, I was the same age as Brandon was in the book when 9/11 happened (9), and I do recall talking with schoolmates about people jumping from the tower in some of the days right after 9/11. I really can't remember if we watched the news at school, but we might have. And certainly everyone knew what was going on - so I'm kind of relieved that Gratz shows how horrifically violent it was as opposed to many other children's books that pretend that children were shielded from the carnage or were not told what was going on.

And Brandon's dad dies in the North Tower which again sort of subverts that tendency of j-fiction about 9/11 that doesn't have someone directly connected to the main character die. I don't know if Brandon's dad dying is actually a spoiler because obviously if he was going to work at Windows on the World that morning and was there when the plane hit, there was no chance. But that might not be as common of common knowledge.

So generally, I was pleasantly surprised by Ground Zero. I might have to give Gratz another chance (to be fair Projekt 1065 was fine, I just really hated Code of Honor).

Content Warnings

greenlivingaudioworm's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

booksojwhi's review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional reflective tense fast-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

Content Warnings

sierranorgan's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

5.0

VRC #4! This was a hard read, the content was way more intense than I expected it to be. But I really liked the view it gave from both perspectives.

Content Warnings

frankietheavidreader's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I'm not really a huge fan of war novels, but I liked this book since it was talking about a really devastating event. I really like it's pov on two different characters, on Reshmina and Brandon. It gives us an insight on how the people of Afghanistan is dealing with the war. And it shows us how most people were feeling when the towers hit and how they were trying to escape. I would give this book a 4/5.

Content Warnings

kayfo's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

rdemares2's review

Go to review page

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

It wasnt as interesting as I hoped it would be, the ending was good though.

Content Warnings

More...