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stuhlsem 's review for:
The Drowned Cities
by Paolo Bacigalupi
Companion to Ship Breakers, which was also great!
I had heard that The Drowned Cities surpassed Ship Breakers and was pleasantly surprised to find it indeed so!
Of all the dystopian American novels recently, Bacigalupi's are the most realistic (in my mind). If the US government and society did collapse for whatever reason, I doubt we would develop a complex caste system (Divergent) or random districts with highly evolved transport (Hunger Games). Total chaos seems rather more our style. In Drowned Cities (and yes...it took me until they described the Washington Monument to figure out that it was DC), the region is controlled by warring factions of children (Sudan, anybody?) who kidnap villagers to scavenge the DC area in order to sell to multinational companies in exchange for bullets, so they can continue to kidnap villagers...etc.
The main character, Mahlia, is another smart and selfish girl who doesn't have anybody to take care of her. She and another "war maggot", Mouse, adopt each other and save each others' lives in multiple situations. When Mouse is recruited into one of the child armies as Mahlia saves herself (along with Tool, a genetically designed cocktail of human, dog, wolf, hyena, tiger genes), Mahlia decides to rescue him, even if it means giving up on her philosophy of survival at all costs.
She does not fall in love. Nobody falls in love. In a YA novel, this is notable.
I had heard that The Drowned Cities surpassed Ship Breakers and was pleasantly surprised to find it indeed so!
Of all the dystopian American novels recently, Bacigalupi's are the most realistic (in my mind). If the US government and society did collapse for whatever reason, I doubt we would develop a complex caste system (Divergent) or random districts with highly evolved transport (Hunger Games). Total chaos seems rather more our style. In Drowned Cities (and yes...it took me until they described the Washington Monument to figure out that it was DC), the region is controlled by warring factions of children (Sudan, anybody?) who kidnap villagers to scavenge the DC area in order to sell to multinational companies in exchange for bullets, so they can continue to kidnap villagers...etc.
The main character, Mahlia, is another smart and selfish girl who doesn't have anybody to take care of her. She and another "war maggot", Mouse, adopt each other and save each others' lives in multiple situations. When Mouse is recruited into one of the child armies as Mahlia saves herself (along with Tool, a genetically designed cocktail of human, dog, wolf, hyena, tiger genes), Mahlia decides to rescue him, even if it means giving up on her philosophy of survival at all costs.
She does not fall in love. Nobody falls in love. In a YA novel, this is notable.