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saphirablue 's review for:
Shade's Children
by Garth Nix
Well, this one proofed once again that dystopias are not for me. I ask too many questions and don't receive answers for them and then there is just some behaviour I don't get. *sighs*
What I liked:
The four main characters and that sometimes the boys saved the girls and sometimes the girls saved the boys.
The Change talents.
The mention of sex and contraception education. You have a population (and readership) consisting mostly of teens. You do want to have something like this.
The love story was not a major thing.
What I didn't like:
That we don't learn more about this world and it's characters. Yes, we only get to see a small part of it (which is one thing I'm struggeling with such kind of books - I want to know what's happening in the rest of the world too.) but we only learn so little about this world and the people still living in it. What did it look like before? How do the kids find all this stuff? How did Shade came to be? How do the Change talents (especially the ones like Ellas) work? Why does water hamper the Change talents as well as the "talents" of the Trackers, Ferrets, Myrmidons and so on? Why do they need the brains of under fourteen year olds? Where did the Overlords come from and why are they human? How is it possible that there are still 50.000 kids left to be freed when a 100 kids a day "die" in the Meat Factory? Why...?
That Ella and Drum die. Seriously?
I guessed pretty early that Shade is not who he pretends to be.
Maybe if the book would have had more pages and invested more time in worldbuilding and character development... The premise is great but it just didn't deliver. Sadly.
What I liked:
The four main characters and that sometimes the boys saved the girls and sometimes the girls saved the boys.
The Change talents.
The mention of sex and contraception education. You have a population (and readership) consisting mostly of teens. You do want to have something like this.
The love story was not a major thing.
What I didn't like:
That we don't learn more about this world and it's characters. Yes, we only get to see a small part of it (which is one thing I'm struggeling with such kind of books - I want to know what's happening in the rest of the world too.) but we only learn so little about this world and the people still living in it. What did it look like before? How do the kids find all this stuff? How did Shade came to be? How do the Change talents (especially the ones like Ellas) work? Why does water hamper the Change talents as well as the "talents" of the Trackers, Ferrets, Myrmidons and so on? Why do they need the brains of under fourteen year olds? Where did the Overlords come from and why are they human? How is it possible that there are still 50.000 kids left to be freed when a 100 kids a day "die" in the Meat Factory? Why...?
That Ella and Drum die. Seriously?
I guessed pretty early that Shade is not who he pretends to be.
Maybe if the book would have had more pages and invested more time in worldbuilding and character development... The premise is great but it just didn't deliver. Sadly.