Review: The Ellie Chronicles

Just wanted to note: Some time ago I finished all 7 of the "Tomorrow, When the War Began" series.

I recently completed the three of "The Ellie Chronicles", a follow up series.

These three books chronicle how Ellie Linton copes with the aftermath of the war.

She's looking after deaf kid Gavin, trying to look after her farm, there's still bits of war stuff going on and trying to get on with whatever semblance of normal life she can gather.

I read it to find out if it was possible for Marsden to keep up the pace after the 7 of the "Tomorrow" series - and I have to say, he delivers for all 3 books. They are excellent, whether you like them better or not will depend on what you prefer, hard, fast-paced war action or a bit more gritty individual character reflection with action interspersed, which is more of what the Chronicles delivers. More than delivers. I wish I could write like that!

I won't reveal the plot except to say I noted ONE blooper. There's a scene where Ellie says she's watching Grease and she first listens to "Hopelessly Devoted to You" (which reminds her of something) and then "Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee" comes along and she and her friend start dancing around the room like crazy.

For the record, "Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee" is sung before "Hopelessly Devoted to You" in the movie. Rizzo makes fun of Sandy in the first book, then runs off and leaves the gang, then Sandy goes off into the garden and sings "Hopelessly Devoted to You".

It's embarrassing to say I've watched Grease so many times I picked this up without really thinking about it too hard.

I think it's too late to contact Marsden and to get him to correct it ... but just thought I'd point it out ... I guess I'm just an annoying pedant!

Tomorrow, When the War Began (the series)

I could already tell when I started this book that I liked it. And the series keeps up the pace that the first one set.

This is one of the series that I did not felt suffered from "cleaning up" syndrome - though it could be argued there is a little of feeling of being cheated by the ending. I didn't actually feel that.

One thing that was great about it was that it didn't lose momentum, and it didn't run out of ideas.

The premise is fairly original and cool - kids coming back to their hometown after a weekend away to find it invaded by some unidentified army, but there was a possibility of it fading - were the kids just going to spend the entire time running around scrabbling for survival and every so often blowing up an army truck with a home made bomb?

The series was cleverer than that and thought of several ideas for action and variations, as well as exploring relationships and the way different personalities would react to pressure.

Marsden wasn't in the least afraid to explore grit and violence instead of trying to make it cheesy like Rowling was more apt to do - but then he was exploring a war topic, not a magic story, and writing, at least to begin with, for a much older audience.

The different characters in the group represented a wide number of character traits, and I thought this was a great way of exploring character and story ideas, and allowing readers to have someone to empathise with. Probably people could find one or two people and a few of their reactions they strongly identified with in the book. I also felt it was great that Ellie, the lead, was portrayed as strong, opinionated, yet flawed - an excellent character to see things through, even though I didn't strongly identify with her.

Marsden did use some techniques to allow for the children to have some superior powers to what many children reading his books might have - for instance, they could drive, make bombs, and use guns proficiently. This is explained by them being "country kids" and doesn't feel too much like a cheat.

The fact that Ellie's friends are "not really dead" at the end does not feel too much like a cheat at the end (as I sneakingly suspected that they weren't) and in fact there seemed to be something too "easy" about finishing them all off just to end the story. What in fact seemed more realistic was the fact they survived but that the war tarnished Ellie's relationship with them.

At any rate, I will be reading the Ellie Chronicles later - or at least I will have a go.

This was an excellent ride, and well worth reading 7 books. Addictive!

Seven

Even though it wasn't on my list of New Year's Resolutions, somehow I stumbled upon a pursuit this year and turned it into some kind of goal, game, race, whatever. It was an accident that I found it, but I'm glad I did.

I started to read two children's series with seven books in each series. Both well-known. Both highly acclaimed. Both very different. (One I've finished, one I haven't).

The first was the Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling. I completed the last book in series tonight.

The other was the Tomorrow, When the War Began series, by John Marsden. I've completed up to the fifth book in that one.

Now, first of all, I'll mention that both these series were not just series I forced myself to read to complete a task. I enjoyed reading both - and will definitely complete Marsden's series.

There have been other series which I've heard are good but have been unable to continue going with. I attempted to read Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn. It didn't really do it for me. I pursued with Book 2, then stopped. It just wasn't my thing.

But both these series have been a lot of fun and captured my interest. I was interested in doing a compare/contrast, but the series were so different it was like comparing apples with oranges.

Then I thought, "What the heck? Why can't you compare apples with oranges? They are both fruit!"

So why the heck not? .... just have to finish 2 John Marsden books ...