Half Lives, by Sara Grant

I said I'd post a review soon and here it is:

 I admit it took me a little while what with the summer holidays starting and the kids at home and all that. Not that it took long to read the book. No, once I'd started I pretty much read it straight through - it's that sort of book - it just took me a while to find the time to write the review. But we're here now, so....

Let's start with the unputdownable thing. This is actually two stories interwoven with each other. The first is told from the viewpoint of a present day 'typical teenager' called Icie, who find herself torn from her normal life by a 911 text message from her scientist parents. The second is set centuries later and focuses mainly on Beckett, the leader of a small band of survivors. Icie's story is fast-paced and stuffed full of cliff-hangers. Beckett's is thoughtful and mysterious. And the novel alternates between each so that an Icie action cliff-hanger is followed by a Beckett mystery one and so on. And that's what makes it so difficult to put down. (And, incidentally, why you shouldn't think of reading all of one story and then the other.)

Icie, as I've said is a typical teenager. She's obsessed with her phone, she's got boy problems, and a best friend who shares her passion for coining new words and disseminating via social networking to the whole local community. Normally she would pretty much ignore a text from her geeky parents, but 911 is the code for utmost emergency and when she gets home she finds them both packed and ready to escape a threatened terrorist attack involving a mysterious and deadly biological agent. 

This being a YA story, the parents are lost pretty early on and Icie soon finds herself picking up a rag-taggle collection of companions comprising a shaved-headed cheerleader, a spoilt little 12 year old boy and a brooding mystery guy with whom, you just know, Icie is going to become emotionally entangled. Together they struggle through the chaos and hysteria caused by the attack to find their way to an abandoned nuclear bunker where they can be safe until the contagion has passed. It's not a pretty journey. The disease is ghastly but Icie isn't the nicest of heroines either. She's tough and she can make the hard decisions - a sort of Katniss Everdeen without the killing and hair obsessions - but she grows up as the book progresses and her experiences change her for the better.

Beckett's story is totally different. This is more about the mystery. Clearly there's some connection between his story and Icie's. For a start he and his followers live on a mountain near Vegas. Icie's bunker is under a mountain near Vegas. They must be the same. And then there is their weird religion. They worship the Great I AM, they have a language that seems to have derived from Icie's but with meanings that have slipped on the way. Adepts in the religion are cheerleaders. The little children are rockstars and the Twitter reads from the sacred texts of Sayings. And at the end of each Saying they all say 'Whatever'. I love this. It's witty but it fits and it seems to make Beckett's struggle to understand who he is and where he comes from all the more poignant. 

There is violence in Beckett's story. His little group are petrified of 'terrorists', their term for outsiders. So when Beckett befriends a girl from 'Vega', you know trouble will follow. But for all of this, Beckett's story still has a quieter, more thoughtful feel to Icie's and that makes the whole novel all the more powerful.

I could go on but I don't what to reveal the 'deadly secret'. I enjoyed Sara's first YA novel, Dark Parties, but this one is even better. You sense that her experience at Working Partners really pays off here. If you only read one 'dystopian' novel this summer, read this one. There's a freshness about the writing and it makes you think too. I loved it.

How Far Would You Go To Survive? - Guest blog post by Sara Grant

Now, there's nothing I like better for this blog than to host a post from Sara Grant. Not only does she write brilliant novels but she's funny and enthusiastic and just such a joy to be around. And that comes out so clearly in everything she writes. I read the first fifty pages or so of Half Lives at the hairdressers yesterday and I'm hooked but more about that when I post my review. For now let's hand over to Sara....

 How Far Would You Go To Survive?

 Both of my teen novels focus on this question – albeit in different ways.

My debut novel Dark Parties explores how far someone will go to stand up for what s/he believes in. My main character Neva risks everything to rebel against an overbearing government and save those she loves.

In my new teen novel Half Lives, my main character Icie must fight to survive when a terrorist releases a deadly virus. Through the course of the novel, she discovers the real cost of survival. She notes, “I learned that surviving isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. If you survive, you’ve got to live with the guilt, and that’s more difficult than looking someone in the eye and pulling the trigger. Trust me. I’ve done both. Killing takes a twitch of the finger. Absolution takes several lifetimes.”

Both Neva and Icie are unlikely heroes thrust into extraordinary situations where they must risk everything to survive – and ultimately save their cultures. Julia Cameron in her book Vein of Gold hypothesizes that artists have themes and stories they are drawn to explore – their veins of gold. If I had to sum up mine, it might be – one person can save the world.

Maybe that sounds cliché or overly sentimental, but if I dig deep in many of my stories I find this theme at the core.

Earlier this year I visited Anne Frank’s hideaway in Amsterdam. It was a reminder that one young girl’s voice can inspire for generations. I love the quote from Anne Frank: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

I would like to think I would be a rebel and stand up and speak out for what I believe in – no matter what the cost. I hope I would be one of those people that sacrifices her safety to save others. I want to believe that I would have walked along side Martin Luther King, for example. I want to believe that I’d step in when I see injustice. But that’s an easy thing for me to say from my comfy flat in London.

Icie doesn’t know what she’s capable of until she is tested. I suppose none of us can. She surprises herself with her ruthless and heroic behaviour.

So… how far would you go to survive?

About Sara Grant

Sara is an author of fiction for teens and younger readers and freelance editor of series fiction. She has worked on twelve different series and edited nearly 100 books. Dark Parties, her first young adult novel, won the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for Europe. Her new novel for teens – titled Half Lives – is an apocalyptic thriller. She also writes – Magic Trix – a fun, magical series for younger readers.

Sara was born and raised in a small town in the Midwestern United States. She graduated from Indiana University with degrees in journalism and psychology, and later she earned a master’s degree in creative and life writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She lives in London.  www.sara-grant.com    @authorsara