Chris Weitz

"Chris Weitz has made a beautiful transition from writing and directing films to novels. The Young World is populated with characters you won't forget and a story as fresh and urgent as Divergent."--James Patterson, #1 NY Times bestselling author of Maximum Ride. Welcome to New York, a city ruled by teens. After a mysterious Sickness wipes out the rest of the population, the young survivors assemble into tightly run tribes. Jefferson, the reluctant leader of the Washington Square tribe, and Donna, the girl he's secretly in love with, have carved out a precarious existence among the chaos. But when a fellow tribe member discovers a clue that may hold the cure for the Sickness, five teens set out on a life-altering road trip, exchanging gunfire with enemy gangs, escaping cults and militias, braving the wilds of the subway--all in order to save humankind. This first novel from acclaimed film writer/director Chris Weitz is the heart-stopping debut of an action-packed trilogy.

The Young World

Jamieson

WARNING. THIS REVIEW CONTAINS UNTAGGED SPOILERS !! 

Alright. Oh boy. This book was a DOWNRIGHT MESS. I mean, not only was it a mess, it was also incredibly offensive and poorly written and I just can't believe this is actually a published book

I'm gonna just break this down and yeaH. 

CHARACTERS:
 Literally every supporting character is a stereotype. 

First we have Peter, who's African American and GAY. I put gay in capital letters because it's the main thing you actually know about him. All he talks about is being gay, his defining characteristic is that he's gay. He also affirms a dozen gay stereotypes - he always all honey and bitch and basically serves to give the main girl (Donna) his best friend relationship advice which is all (I'd tap that so you should too) yech. 

 Then we have SeeThrough She's Asian, so get this, her name is actually a play on words of Sifu. She's also a martial arts expert !! and really smart !! Obviously, I mean, she's Asian so she has to be !! Also, she gets killed off for no reasons, just for a bit of male angst so the boys can feel all guilty and dishonourable about bringing a girl along. There's nothing quite like using female characters as plot devices!!

 Then we move into main characters. The main protagonist is a boy called Jefferson (yes, that's his actual name not an adopted Post-Apocalyptic name. His parents actually called him Jefferson, and his brother WASHINGTON) Jefferson was an okay (I say this tentatively) lead. MOST of the time he was pretty straight forward with the facts which was good because honestly I only cared about the plot but man he still managed to piss me the heck off. Jefferson absolutely reeks of male entitlement. Like he just walks about and is all ooh, I'm a nice boy. Why don't girls go for me, it's because girls don't like nice boys.  Like not this kid! I know this boy and 99% of the time they are, in fact, not nice! GOD. So in his opening lines we have

 "Hey! One of the gunners responds when I pat her on the behind. It's that girl, Carolyn, the blonde who used to be kind of a fashionista before What Happened. Whoops. Even after the apocalypse girls still don't like to get slapped on the butt.  

 GOD, JEFFERSON. Is it because getting slapped on the butt is jusT NOT ON man that's my body y'all can't just go touching it whenever personal space my friend, personal space. GEEZ. 

 So next we have a nice little moment where Jefferson declares his undying love for Donna, expecting her to reciprocate or at least just be like thanks, but no thanks but instead she's like ????? because he chooses a moment WHEN THEIR LIVES ARE IN DANGER and she's taken aback so he shoots back with a
 
 All she had to say was I love you too. But instead she's starting fights. "Just try, try to love me?"

 kid, no girl gotta try to do anything just bc you're feeling under loved yikes ! I honestly can't with this bit the way he's so SHOCKED she's not responding as he plans is a joke. 

 DONNA
 Man, Donna is such a mess she gets her own damn section. This is when we get into the real nitty gritty of the mess of this book. Donna is the alternate viewpoint in this book, and the female voice. But oh my god, she's no problematic!? Honestly, you can just TELL she's been written by a guy because NO GIRLS ACT LIKE THIS. (at least, ones I know anyway) 

 We start off her narration with 
 "The first thing you need to know about me, I'm not beautiful"
 

God! I don't care, Donna! But mostly why this annoys me is that it serves a wider purpose in this book, where all pretty girls are stupid, "sluts", unable to look after themselves and bitchy. Ironic, since Donna has to be one of the most awful, disgusting characters I've ever read. It's basically just serving the purpose to undermine the agency of any girl who might appear beautiful and it's gross. Men, especially, seem to use appearance to characterise females and honestly the way it was done in this book was shocking. 

Donna was this girl that spent her life pitting herself against other girls. Every girl she met was a bitch -- SeeThrough was skinny so Donna makes some comment about how terrible it is girls still think it's cool to watch their weight (??? it's the apocalypse Donna maybe she's just not eating enough like damn) 

Kath is immediately dubbed a "hoe bag", bitch and slut by Donna. In fact, Donna is absolutely awful to her, just because 1: Kath kissed Jefferson and 2: because she's a female?? I think ??

Donna is that "I'm not like other girls!!" girl, in which her value comes from the fact she's not like other girls, thus degrading every single "other girl". Sigh. My least favourite thing. (Lmao not to mention sexist. Girls don't need to disassociate themselves from their gender to be valuable) 

I think this is more of an author fault, but Donna's primary purpose is to talk about boys. Every conversation she has is about her feelings about boys. Every thought she has is about males. I don't think this book passes the Bechdel test even though there are female who communicate with just eachother (3, exactly) times. Each time, all they talk about is boys. There's even a scene where they have a "yes, I guess you've won the fight for the boy" talk. Feckon hell, girls don't like boys jesus!! Girls talk about boys in like 1 in every 100 conversations, probably. ME AND MY GIRL FRIENDS TALK ABOUT GARLIC BREAD MORE THAN WE TALK ABOUT BOYS AND MY FRIENDS HAVE BOYFRIENDS. Like, turns out girls do not constantly fawn over males, despite what they might like to think. 

The way Donna communicates with people is ridiculous. She speaks almost exclusively in Pop Culture references, uses the word like fifty times a page and says "anyhoo" and describe everything as "big ass". He pulled out his big ass sword, thats a big as lake. Blegh BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, she says things like STFU in dialogue. And not, stuff you, I mean actually says the letters S T F U to communicate stuff you. And it's supposed to be typical of teenagers like Donna is down with the kids™ but instead she kind of just makes me wanna cry because this is so inaccurate. (Now if she'd been saying surely and straight fire and thats so lit I could have believed it)

TREATMENT OF RAPE AND USE OF RAPE AS A PLOT DEVICE
This book contains, so much rape. Not the actual act of it, but it's a plot device. It's used to make characters dislike other characters. It's used as the reason why the big baddies are the big baddies. (those dudes rape girls, so they all need to die!)

The thing is, rape is treated like this trivial thing that has happened to some of the girls but it's fine. Like, it's just swept under the rug, no worries when it gets down to it. Rape mainly serves as a means to give the male characters an opportunity to be honourable and take the moral highground. 

But when it comes down to it? These characters rescue a long-term (2years+) rape survivor and call her a hoe-bag a SLUT and a bitch. The fact she's a rape survivor is never dealt with, there are no repercussions on the mental and psychological health of the girl (who gets called her real name, Kath, about once and TITS MCGEE, the most degrading name I can think of for the rest of it) 

The treatment of rape in this honestly shocked me. The fact that is was talked about so novelly was awful and it absolutely was the last straw for me. The rape didn't even serve to develop female characters but instead developed the male characters. It was women being subjected to the rape, but in the end that didn't matter - what mattered was how it effected the boys. I can't even discuss how much this has effected me and how disgusting it is that authors continue to use rape as a meaningless plot device when it's an experience that effects the victim for a life-time

But, as Donna would say, whatever.

POP CULTURE REFERENCES
 Okay, at first I thought these were fun. The kids use a pop culture reference, or a hundred, in this book. At first it was cool, but it soon left me lost. Instead of describing a scene, it'd be like "This is just like Resident Evil" of "If you've seen this movie, you'd know what it looks like"

Sadly, I haven't seen that movie so I don't know what the heck is going on. Also, the teenagers were weird about Pop Culture. Like, there's one bit where they are worshipping a plate with Edward Cullen's face on. It's just weird, and in my opinion, lazy writing. A pop culture reference can be fun, but using them to replace the task of describing a scene is lazy. You're an author man!! That's what authors DO. 

THE PLOT
I guess this is where positives start? The actual current of events was okay, and the only reason I kept going with it. But then it stuffed it up by having a shitty ending and revelations that didn't make sense so urgh. 

Overall:


I'm just done. This was terrible. Do not recommend. 

If you're looking for a teen-world post apocalyptic to replace the Michael Grant's, Gone, size hole in your heart -- move along because this is not that book.

The Young World

Reviews