 You know how there are a million and one stories about how adults are all gone and so kids take over and form their own society? Well, the young world is one of those. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. Before I really get into the review, I just want to say something. So this book, I think it's actually really good. I did enjoy it, but the thing is when I went into it, I was not expecting to enjoy it. I saw the title, I read what it was about, and I saw who wrote it, which I'll get to him in a minute. And I just thought, okay, that sounds really stupid. That sounds like a train wreck. I'm going to read that and just it might be surprising. You know, it might be kind of good, but I was not expecting to enjoy it. I was expecting it to be either laughably stupid or just bad. And I did have part of me that was thinking, okay, it might be good. So I was going into it with a somewhat open mind, but even before I had started reading it, I was kind of refusing to meet it on its own terms. And as it went on, I think I was around 40, 50 pages in before I realized like, no, this is genuinely good. You know, if I set aside all my reservations about like the genre itself and set aside all my issues with young adults and set some of that stuff aside and just meet this book on its own terms, just look at it, what it's trying to do and look at how well it does that, then I realized, yeah, it's good. It's actually well written. It's actually well put together. There's a lot of stuff in here to enjoy. I realized that for a long time, I haven't been meeting stuff on its own terms, you know, not just books, like that's the main thing I talk about on this channel, obviously, but with, you know, video games, movies, all sorts of stuff that I enjoy, I've been enjoying it a lot less because I haven't been meeting it on its own terms. And I hate to keep reusing that phrase, but that's really the best way of putting it, I can think of. Because we all have some genres that we think are less good than others or that we think are stupid. You know, I know there's a lot of people out there that can't get into epic fantasy because they can't meet epic fantasy on its own terms, and I fucking love epic fantasy. And same with stuff like space opera or military science fiction or just whatever. So to me, this book, even though it was pretty good, even if it hadn't been pretty good, it still would have been a valuable lesson to me because it made me realize that if you just meet something in the middle, you know, if you look past some of your own hangups about the genre and everything, and that's not to say you can't have preferences, but if you look past your own hangups about the genre and just sort of let some of the aspects that you think are kind of stupid or maybe not cliched, but just stuff that you think is dumb or stuff that you think is unrealistic or whatever, if you just let that pass over your head and accept it for what it is, you're going to enjoy it a lot more. So with that small rant out of the way, let's talk about the young world for real. So this book is all about a world in which an apocalyptic virus went out and it killed all of the adults and all of the young kids, and now there's only teenagers left. And not only that, but all the people left once they reach a certain age, the disease hits them too and they die. So society is just not only has it already crumbled, but humanity is very slowly going extinct and there's really nothing they can do. Enter the two main POV characters of this book, a guy named Jefferson and a girl named Donna. They are both members of a tribe that hangs out in Washington Square Park in Manhattan. And at the beginning of the book, Jefferson's older brother, who was their leader, dies of the disease. And so Jefferson, I don't want to say he ascends the throne because the other people vote for him, but they agree to make him the leader. And one of the other members of their tribe finds out about this scientific journal about the virus and he thinks, okay, if I can go find that, then maybe I can make some sort of treatment or cure for this illness. And pretty much the whole rest of the book is just them traveling through the very dangerous remains of post-apocalypse New York trying to reach this journal and trying to find a cure. Now, I personally think it's a little silly that they're looking for an actual cure. To me, that's like blowing things a little more out of proportion than they should be. You know, like post-apocalypse shouldn't be about saving the world because, well, the world's already destroyed. But you know, again, once I just sort of let that roll over me and accepted it for what it is, I thought that was a pretty good plot. You know, I will say that the story doesn't really drag at any point. You know, the beginning is really solid because not only do you have Jefferson's brother dying, but before that, you have another group of survivors come over and try and strong arm them into giving up some of their women in exchange for a pig. And well, yeah. So right off the bat, that tells you that, one, these guys who, they later become the closest thing to a villain that this book has. One, that they're kind of psycho. Two, that this world is also kind of psycho. Three, that the main characters are decent enough people. And four, it caught me off-guard, if nothing else. Like, I know it wasn't supposed to be funny, but it was a little funny when they just said, okay, we'll trade you this pig for your women. And as the story goes on, there's usually something big and important happening. And I will say that this one was a little bit too fast in a couple of points. Like, there's a couple of parts where I would have liked them to stay there a little bit longer and get to know some of these characters more and really just bask in the setting, or not bask in the setting, bask in the atmosphere. Fuck, I can't think of the word. I'm not not re-recording that, but just bask in all that and enjoy it a little. But that really is a nitpick. Overall, this is a pretty good plot, right up until the climax where, well, there really isn't a climax, you know? Like, I'll talk about it a little bit in the spoiler section, but once they get to near the end, everything slows down and kind of stops for a little bit, and then a couple of things happen and then there's a cliffhanger right at the end. And it's not a terrible cliffhanger, I don't think, but it's done in such a way where I was wondering what the hell was going on rather than wondering, oh, what's going to happen next? I'm excited to see what happens next. This has a really solid character cast, too. Now, I mentioned the two main POV characters, Jefferson and Donna. And Jefferson is kind of not super interesting, I will admit. Like, he has a couple of moments where you hear about his backstory. Like, his father was like 40 years older than his mother, and he was a soldier in World War II, and Jefferson himself is a Buddhist, and stuff like that. And some of that is kind of interesting, and it does influence some of his outlook and everything. And I'm not saying he's a bad character by any means. I'm just thinking that in a lot of ways he's kind of a generic good guy. But here's the thing, only about half the chapters follow him, the other half follow Donna. And I said in the past that a lot of YA books have multiple POVs and they really, really don't need them. In fact, it detracts from the story most of the time. In this case, that's not true. Because Donna and Jefferson have very distinct narrative voices. And not only that, but in my copy of the book, they're actually written with different fonts. So you can immediately tell just from looking at it, okay, this is Jefferson, or okay, this is Donna. And Jefferson's narration is more of like a traditional narrative. You know, it's like, okay, here's all these details, and here's what I think about things, here's me going off on a little diatribe. You know, just what you would expect from a work of fiction, whether it's being a little artsy, and that makes sense because they actually mentioned in the book that he's a storyteller, you know, he's really good at telling stuff, that sort of stuff. So it makes sense that something from his perspective would be written that way. Now, Donna on the other hand, is written a little more, I don't want to say skeletal, but there's a lot less detail. Hers, it feels more like a normal person, where they only focus in on the really important stuff, and then they kind of gloss over some of the other bits. Like, there's a lot of points where she's describing dialogue, and it'll be written almost like a script, where it's like, Jefferson, and then what he said, and then Peter, and then what Peter said, and then me, and what she said. And so, I mean, you can like or dislike either of those styles. I thought they were both charming in their own way, but they are distinct, and they are both good, I think. So I liked that. The only thing about Donna, and again, this is nitpicky, is that her, she is a little grating at times. Not throughout the whole book, but just at a couple of points, because her personality is kind of an odd combination of like, a stereotypical teenage girl. Like, imagine a valley girl from a movie from the early 2000s, like that kind of vapid, obnoxious teenage girl stereotype, and then it's kind of combined with, oh, I'm not like other girls, I'm not superficial like those other bitches, and that sort of thing. And one, those don't always mesh well, and two, they're both kind of annoying in their own way. But again, that's only at a couple of points. For the most part, Donna is a competent character, you know, she doesn't really get people in trouble, she's likable enough, you understand where she's coming from, it's, you know, she's fine. Most of the other characters are good too, and I'm not going to go into all of them in a lot of detail, but I mean, I remember most of their names, I remember at least something about their personalities. I remember at least one or two funny moments that they all had, because that's another thing about this book. It's genuinely funny. Like, I saw the author, it was Chris Whites, and if you don't know that name, I don't blame you. I didn't know it earlier, but I was familiar with his other work, because he works in Hollywood. He's been a producer, a director, and a writer on movies like American Pie, The Golden Compass, Twilight Saga New Moon, About a Boy, and this is actually his first book. And the thing is, all those movies, it's a mixed bag, it's a very mixed bag in terms of quality. Like, I'm not blaming him for Twilight New Moon being bad, like no one could have salvaged that source material, but it was kind of interesting, and so that's part of why I was thinking, okay, this might just be a train wreck, but I think that his comedic writing, because I do genuinely like the American Pie movies, I think they're really funny, his comedic writing shines through here. He knows how to make me laugh. And again, a lot of it is gallows humor is the thing, but there is also just some stuff like irony, and people misunderstanding the motivations of one another, and sometimes the characters just make regular jokes, and it's a really funny book at points, and I think that's important because it's really dark and dreary a lot of the time, you know, it's after the apocalypse, humanity is dying in slow motion, like you need to be able to bring some levity in once in a while, and he does that admirably, so yeah, major props for that. Now the biggest single issue I have with this, and it's really not that big, but it was, it did irk me, was the love triangle. Now here's the thing, I'm not terrible writing advice, I don't think all love triangles are awful all the time. I think that when you do them well, they can really add to a story, and they can really give a feeling of uncertainty, and they can really help develop the characters. The problem is that they're done well so rarely, like they are almost never done well, and this book is no exception, and it annoyed me more because at the beginning it seems like they're going to do a love triangle between Jefferson, Donna, and Jefferson's older brother, because it's made clear that Donna has a thing for his older brother, and that Jefferson has a thing for Donna, but his brother dies pretty early on, so I was thinking, okay, so they were just, you know, kind of subverting the trope there, okay? It's like he's bringing attention to the fact that these sorts of stories usually have a love triangle, and then taking it away, so it's like, okay, he's aware of what he's doing, but then later on, they meet another girl named Kath, and she has a thing for Jefferson, oh man. It's not developed, it doesn't add anything. In fact, it kind of takes away because Kath has some aspects to her character that I kind of like, but the thing is, she fights with Donna a lot over Jefferson, and it just kind of makes both of them look like a bunch of, I don't really like saying this, but it makes them look like catty flirtatious bitches, and it's one, it's annoying to read, and two, it really takes away from both of those characters, so the love triangle in this was a huge, huge downside. So that's about it for the non-spoiler section. I had a lot more to say about this than I initially thought I would, because, well, when you accept something for what it is, and just go into it with an open mind, you're probably going to enjoy it more than you would have normally, and that's not to say that every book I've reviewed before this has been like, okay, you shouldn't take my opinion seriously because I'm just looking for reasons to hate it. That's not true. It's just that I wasn't going into all of them with the attitude that I probably should have, and if you go into this one with the attitude of like, okay, that's a little silly, but why not? Let's check it out. I think you'll really like it. I think there's a lot to like in here. It's a fun journey. It's fun seeing this little society. You have really good characters that you follow, and there is a feeling of dread throughout a lot of it because you know if they fail, the world really will end. So would I recommend this? If you're into YA, yes, I'd probably recommend it. If you're into post-apocalyptic stories, sure, give it a shot. So now the spoiler section. This shouldn't be too long, but basically, near the end of the book, Jefferson and Donna and all their friends reach this island where the research facility that made the virus, that killed everybody, is being kept, and they run into a whole bunch of kids there who are all drugged up and crazy, and they get captured and they bring them to the one last adult that's alive in the world. He was one of the scientists that helped create the virus, and he gives kind of some pseudo-scientific explanation for how it works. It's not important. It's a plot device, whatever. And then he starts like experimenting on them, trying to find out, okay, here's how we can cure this, blah blah blah, and they get held prisoner for a while, and then one of their friends appears to betray them, but then he very quickly turns around and reveals that okay, I didn't actually betray you and he helps them out, and then the lead scientist guy appears to die, and then a helicopter comes out, and there's some adults in it, and they're like, whoa, there's adults there, and then the book ends, and I mean, like I said before, it's not much of a climax. It's very disappointing, and it leaves you thinking more like, well, what's going on? You know, and not in a, oh, I have to read to find out what's happening, it's more like it's changing up the rules on you, because we thought that, okay, all the adults are dead except for this guy, and these people that are coming now, presumably they were quarantined somewhere, and so there's still a lot, I don't know, and I'm not saying I won't read the second book, I'm just saying that, well, I'm not super excited to do so, so it's a little lower on my list of priorities than it maybe should be, but you know, it's not a terrible ending, it's just, I had to bring it up because, like, what? So thanks again to everyone who watched, please like and subscribe and comment and all that other shit I'm supposed to say, and thanks especially to my patrons, Des Brennan, Christopher Hawkins, and Joseph Pendergraft, and all the others, if you'd like to consider donating to my page, maybe you can get some goodies or something, I don't know, why don't you go check that out? Bye.