October 20, 2009

Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden


Tomorrow, When the War Began was my favorite book from when I was a teenager. I read it three times back then, and since then I've thought about it a lot. In common Ronnica-form, I forgot what the title was, and it took me a couple of years before I found it again. When I searched for it based on the plot I remembered, I kept finding this book, but didn't think it was the one I was thinking about since it's the first book of the series.

I have no idea how I didn't know that it was a part of the series. Granted, I probably read it when the series wasn't complete yet so perhaps the copy I had borrowed from the library had no mention of the subsequent books. By itself, Tomorrow, When the War Began is a complete story, so I guess I didn't notice the big cliffhanger of an ending (?). Or maybe I just prefer books that don't tie up all the loose strings.

When I reread this book, I found it every bit as enjoyable as I did the first time. It is the story of a small group of Australian teenagers who come back from camping in the Bush to find that their town has been rounded up by foreign soldiers and are all living in captivity at the fairgrounds. They face the hard decisions of how to live life now that everything they've ever come to know is changed.

I talked about on my own blog why this book captivated me so much back then, but beyond that and the intriguing plot, it is well-written. Marsden has a way of really letting you get into the head of his teenaged female narrator as if she was truly the one writing the story. Of course, along with that comes early-90s, Australian slang, but it's not too hard to sort through.

I recommend this book to teenagers and adults alike. While it isn't entirely clean, it's not graphic, either.

And now that I know about the series, I can't wait to read more.

2 comments:

  1. but ur title says Tomorrow when the WORLD began

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous: Thanks for catching my error...it's been fixed now!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for joining our discussion of this book!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...