Author: John Marsden
I have just finished John Marsden’s The Other Side of Dawn. This is the seventh and last book in the Tomorrow When the War Began series. For those who admire the main character, Ellie Linton, there are now three books in another series about her life after the war. Rather than simply review the book, I'm going to compare three books about deadly teenagers.
Ellie and her friends are caught up in an invasion of Australia. They become part of the resistance movement and hide out deep in the bush. In the series they make contact with the New Zealand army but return to support the “D day” effort. The level of violence is high, with the teenagers directly killing enemy soldiers (shooting and other methods) as well as causing the deaths of many more through their bombing of a truck stopover. I should mention that Marsden has chosen to include detailed description of sexual encounters between Ellie and one of the boys. I won’t give away the ending, but will say that Ellie faces difficult issues while in captivity.
I felt far less engaged with Ellie, and less clear about the moral issues involved, than with the lead characters in two other books about deadly teens. Katniss in Hunger Games is clearer about the horror of what she is forced into, and the series is clearer about the damage this does to her. Ender Wiggins, in Ender's Game, is another teen not just randomly picked for a fight, but is basically hand picked for his unique brilliance and ability to end fights with overwhelming force. While he is portrayed as damaged in the books, the next four books in the series make it clear that he has to spend the remainder of his life atoning for the killing he is tricked into doing in the first book.
Perhaps part of the problem is that Marsden refuses to name or identify the invaders to avoid inflaming any racism. This leaves an odd sense of unreality about the situation. For the most part the soldiers are only seen at a distance and are hardly characters… though the sleazy Colonel Long and the staff in a prison hospital are drawn in grim detail. While we hear Ellie’s story in the first person, there is less reflection and anguish over the deaths than I might have expected… in significant contrast to the other two books.
Interestingly I have seen some strong negative reactions from adults to the Hunger Games series… but not to Ender’s Game. Perhaps the difference is the moral outrage at the idea of the teen sacrifice combined with a public spectacle, while Ender is fighting a monstrous alien threat.
The Other Side of Dawn is not written with any complex structure. It consists of a series of intense episodes, with a somewhat predictable story arc. Hunger Games is also written in the first person, but to my way of thinking has more unexpected plot turns, and more successful use of motifs, along with sub plots that are about politics, love, morality and leadership. Ender's Game has a more complex approach with reflective transcripts of key adult conversations at the start of each chapter, a very strong plot twist, fascinating characters (not just Ender) and a multi-cyclic ebb and flow.
So to me Dawn pales somewhat in comparison to these other books, especially as it passes by an opportunity to reflect, even at the teenage level, on the meaning and impact of taking another life. Because it is relatively straightforward it feels as though it may have been written for younger teens… but then it is very violent and has the two uninhibited sex scenes… so I am left unsure of how to recommend this.
I have just finished John Marsden’s The Other Side of Dawn. This is the seventh and last book in the Tomorrow When the War Began series. For those who admire the main character, Ellie Linton, there are now three books in another series about her life after the war. Rather than simply review the book, I'm going to compare three books about deadly teenagers.
Ellie and her friends are caught up in an invasion of Australia. They become part of the resistance movement and hide out deep in the bush. In the series they make contact with the New Zealand army but return to support the “D day” effort. The level of violence is high, with the teenagers directly killing enemy soldiers (shooting and other methods) as well as causing the deaths of many more through their bombing of a truck stopover. I should mention that Marsden has chosen to include detailed description of sexual encounters between Ellie and one of the boys. I won’t give away the ending, but will say that Ellie faces difficult issues while in captivity.
I felt far less engaged with Ellie, and less clear about the moral issues involved, than with the lead characters in two other books about deadly teens. Katniss in Hunger Games is clearer about the horror of what she is forced into, and the series is clearer about the damage this does to her. Ender Wiggins, in Ender's Game, is another teen not just randomly picked for a fight, but is basically hand picked for his unique brilliance and ability to end fights with overwhelming force. While he is portrayed as damaged in the books, the next four books in the series make it clear that he has to spend the remainder of his life atoning for the killing he is tricked into doing in the first book.
Perhaps part of the problem is that Marsden refuses to name or identify the invaders to avoid inflaming any racism. This leaves an odd sense of unreality about the situation. For the most part the soldiers are only seen at a distance and are hardly characters… though the sleazy Colonel Long and the staff in a prison hospital are drawn in grim detail. While we hear Ellie’s story in the first person, there is less reflection and anguish over the deaths than I might have expected… in significant contrast to the other two books.
Interestingly I have seen some strong negative reactions from adults to the Hunger Games series… but not to Ender’s Game. Perhaps the difference is the moral outrage at the idea of the teen sacrifice combined with a public spectacle, while Ender is fighting a monstrous alien threat.
The Other Side of Dawn is not written with any complex structure. It consists of a series of intense episodes, with a somewhat predictable story arc. Hunger Games is also written in the first person, but to my way of thinking has more unexpected plot turns, and more successful use of motifs, along with sub plots that are about politics, love, morality and leadership. Ender's Game has a more complex approach with reflective transcripts of key adult conversations at the start of each chapter, a very strong plot twist, fascinating characters (not just Ender) and a multi-cyclic ebb and flow.
So to me Dawn pales somewhat in comparison to these other books, especially as it passes by an opportunity to reflect, even at the teenage level, on the meaning and impact of taking another life. Because it is relatively straightforward it feels as though it may have been written for younger teens… but then it is very violent and has the two uninhibited sex scenes… so I am left unsure of how to recommend this.
