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A review by perpetualephemeral
Feral Youth by Shaun David Hutchinson, E.C. Myers, Robin Talley, Tim Floreen, Stephanie Kuehn, Susanne Young, Marieke Nijkamp, Justina Ireland, Brandy Colbert, Alaya Dawn Johnson
3.0
I remember getting a free copy of Feral Youth as a part of my secondary school's book club years ago, and always put it off because I thought it would be 10 different perspectives all at once. But upon picking this book up again, I realised it's more of an anthology - 10 troubled teens each voicing their story with a drifting narrator telling the story of the group in between.
This book felt a little disjointed to me. It's difficult to keep up with all the characters at the beginning as you know nothing about them bar their names, but obviously you get a window into their life through the story they tell.
As each story is written by a different author, the quality and depth of each vary. However, they all share a crucial similarity - they express their own unfortunate entrapping due to the rules of their society.
The narrative between the stories these teens tell just didn't really do much for me. It felt a little pointless up until the ending, which is admittedly quite smart. But otherwise, this easily could've been a short story collection.
To round out, here's my ranking of all the stories told.
1. Tino - fantastically layered ghost story
2. Lucinda
3. Jackie
4. Georgina
5. Cody
6. Jenna
7. Sunday
8. David
9. Jalia - a weird, lucidly mythological story that didn't hit the mark
I give Feral Youth three to three and a half stars.
This book felt a little disjointed to me. It's difficult to keep up with all the characters at the beginning as you know nothing about them bar their names, but obviously you get a window into their life through the story they tell.
As each story is written by a different author, the quality and depth of each vary. However, they all share a crucial similarity - they express their own unfortunate entrapping due to the rules of their society.
The narrative between the stories these teens tell just didn't really do much for me. It felt a little pointless up until the ending, which is admittedly quite smart. But otherwise, this easily could've been a short story collection.
To round out, here's my ranking of all the stories told.
1. Tino - fantastically layered ghost story
2. Lucinda
3. Jackie
4. Georgina
5. Cody
6. Jenna
7. Sunday
8. David
9. Jalia - a weird, lucidly mythological story that didn't hit the mark
I give Feral Youth three to three and a half stars.