Garth Nix “Shade’s Children”
Once again I picked up a YA book and once again I didn’t get disappointed.
Imagine a world where your fourteenth birthday is your last. In a futuristic urban wasteland, evil Overlords have decreed that no child shall live past the age of fourteen. On that Sad Birthday, every child is the object of an obscene harvest - his brains and muscles are used to construct machine-like creatures whose sole purpose is to kill. Ella, Drum, Gold-Eye, and Ninde have all escaped this terrible fate and are recruited into a resistance movement by the mysterious Shade. Haunted ceaselessly by savage, mutant creatures, Shade’s children work together to discover the source of the Overlords’ power. But as they get closer to their goal, they begin to question Shade’s motives and objectives.
Although the book is at times quite brutal, the story is nevertheless a real page-turner from start to finish. I know I would have loved this book if I would have read it as a teenager. Being over 30 now, I still enjoyed it. Not only was it a nice, quick read in between more demanding books. It only fits well into my obsession with dystopian fiction. I’ll definitely look up Garth Nix’ other books as well.
