Review : Obernewtyn

Posted by kay on July 24, 2009 1:49 am in 3.5 stars reads | 2 comments

Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody
Pages : 244
Genre : Young Adult, Fantasy, Post-Apocalypse
My Rating : 

After the nuclear holocaust of the Great White, the surviving humans condemn all Misfits (mutants) to either death by fire or exile to Obernewtyn, a remote mountain institution where mysterious experiments are performed on some exiles.

Elspeth Gordie is a Misfit, struggling to hide her mutant mental abilities and earn a Normalcy Certificate. But when her secret is betrayed, she is sent to Obernewtyn, from which no one has ever escaped. At Obernewtyn she finds not only dreadful experiments, but ambitious overlords who seek to use the Misfits’ paranormal powers to recover the devastating secrets of nuclear war.

As weird as it is, I have a fascination for post-apocalytical worlds. (I mean, isn’t it a bit weird to be so interested in the possibility of our own extinction? Why does this appeal to so many of us?) When I discovered Isobelle Carmody’s young adult series, I knew I had to read it.

What an interesting world Carmody has created with Obernewtyn! It’s filled with possibilities and interesting little twists. There’s plenty of mysterious characters, a girl who can (among other things) communicate by telepathy with her cat, an interesting social context and enough action to keep you reading.

Sadly though, I didn’t feel that the author made use of the full potential of her characters and her universe. She often described in very general traits people or places, without adding the little details necessary to bring the story to life. The same thing happened to events, too : in other words, the author did a lot of “telling” instead of “showing”. Elspeth spends a lot of time at Obernewtyn, and still I had only a very vague idea of what her days were like.

I still enjoyed it though, enough to go looking for the next book in the series. It’s a bonus that I really like the covers, too.

Do you share an interest for post-apocalyptical or dystopian worlds? What aspect of it catches your attention? Do you prefer a more realistic approach, or do you enjoy fantasy and sci-fi coming into the mix?

Personally, I love seing how a society is being re-built with the survivors; exploring the possibilities of a “clean slate”. In the event of such a cataclysm, what would we keep of the “ancient world”? I think those books are often a good opportunity for social observation, too. Would we re-create society the same way? What would be left of religion, politics, values, etc?