Way Down Dark

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com.

I really enjoyed this. I was dark, gritty and way more violent than what I would expect from a young adult book. It also doesn't have any of the cliques I've come to expect from YA (no insta-love) which I really liked. In fact the only reason you know it's YA is because at one point the character mentions being 17 and it's pretty much never mentioned again.

I liked the fact that the character is constantly being told how she isn't any more special than anyone else and that she has to look after herself. In my opinion thats pretty important on a ship where everyone is trying to kill you. This is a tiny detail but I also really liked the fact that the author doesn't come straight out in the first few pages and tell you the main character is a girl. You don't actually find out she is a girl till about 20 pages in. Its a really good example of showing rather than telling.

However there were a few things I didn't like. The story takes place on board a ship. Now the layout of the ship is really important because gangs taking over certain areas is like integral to the plot. But I found it really difficult to visualize the ship. You're told its laid out in hexagonal levels with a shaft in the middle. But the stairs are really confusing because they seem to drop two levels at a time, then you find out the ship is split vertically in half. It was really confusing. I would have preferred some sort of map.

The last problem I had is with these Across The Universe, The Forever Watch type books in general. As soon as you read “generational ship sent out from earth after bad thing happened” you just know there is going to be some sort of twist. Its got to the point where “generational ship” now automatically means “our ancestors have been lying to us” and there is going to be some sort of plot twist. Admittedly in this the plot twist is sort of interesting, the ship turning out to be a prison isn't something I've seen before, but it was kind of obvious considering the ship is called Australia. Its just annoying that you go into these sorts of books expecting a twist so you're not surprised when it happens.

However I was genuinely surprised by how good this book was. I'm really interested to see how the series continues.