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A review by kynan
Zero Repeat Forever by G.S. Prendergast
3.0
TL;DR: A "YA" relationship-in-times-of-adversity page-turner set amidst the destruction of life as we know it by not very nice aliens.
TL: This is an interesting story that falls into the apocalyptic first-contact genre. It's marketed as being a Young Adult book but I have trouble with that designation as I don't think "YA" really equates to anything. In fact, according to Wikipedia, it doesn't: "There are no distinguishable differences in genre styles between YA fiction and adult fiction". So, it's about content, and I suspect that specifically YA fiction tries to come off as less "talk-downey" and to be a little more grimdark than the traditional rose-tinted and nostalgic view of youth that adults come up with. Point being, I think that sometimes "YA" is used as an excuse to ease up on the plotting a little, take some literary shortcuts, and I don't think that's really fair to all the YAs and I do think that is what happened here.
The story is told from two points of view, the main protagonist and majority narrator "Raven" is a "troubled youth", fresh off being busted with a group of her friends, all of whom have been sentenced to shared community service acting as camp counselors to a summer camp (a fact that I had a hard time believing, but some explanation was made as to why a bunch of juvies were employed as social leaders and guardian, I still don't buy it
TL: This is an interesting story that falls into the apocalyptic first-contact genre. It's marketed as being a Young Adult book but I have trouble with that designation as I don't think "YA" really equates to anything. In fact, according to Wikipedia, it doesn't: "There are no distinguishable differences in genre styles between YA fiction and adult fiction". So, it's about content, and I suspect that specifically YA fiction tries to come off as less "talk-downey" and to be a little more grimdark than the traditional rose-tinted and nostalgic view of youth that adults come up with. Point being, I think that sometimes "YA" is used as an excuse to ease up on the plotting a little, take some literary shortcuts, and I don't think that's really fair to all the YAs and I do think that is what happened here.
The story is told from two points of view, the main protagonist and majority narrator "Raven" is a "troubled youth", fresh off being busted with a group of her friends, all of whom have been sentenced to shared community service acting as camp counselors to a summer camp (a fact that I had a hard time believing, but some explanation was made as to why a bunch of juvies were employed as social leaders and guardian, I still don't buy it