NaBloPoMo # 21: A Killing Frost by John Marsden

This is Book Three in John Marsdens Tomorrow-series about the teenager Ellie and her group of friends who are out camping during the Christmas Holidays in the Australian bush when their country is invaded. By now I am a die hard fan of this series. It is so well written and the character development is very, very well described plus it is totally believable.

As we begin A Killing Frost it has been almost half a year since Australia was invaded, and Ellie, Robyn, Fi, Lee and Homer are still hiding out in Hell, their hiding place deep in the Australian bush, between mountains, trees and thick shrubbery. Winter is looming, its getting colder and colder and the friends are beginning to seriously get on each other's nerves. The lovestories which began to develop in Book One and became fully fledged in Book Two are over. The friends cannot really stand each other no more. At first I thought that it was a darn shame, but then I thought about it. And I know that if I had been hemmed in for almost half a year, even if it was with my best friends, I would've been desperate to see new faces and hear new voices.

So the group decides that it is time to move on. They have now developed some relatively good guerilla skills, and as the book moves forward the ugly face of war shows itself more and more. War has been present from Book One, and there has been tough choices to make. But in this one, Ellie and the rest of the group are made to make some very difficult choices, and if the things happening in the first two books did not change them, then what happens in A Killing Frost definitely will.

But it is not all hate and violence. There is also courage, faith, surprises and a bit of luck thrown in as the groups moves towards one of their biggest warfare accomplishments. Again I sat on the edge reading this one, sometimes having to put it aside because the suspense was almost unbearable. I finished it in a day, and am now eagerly looking forward to Book Four! A Killing Frost was meant to be the last book, since the series was originally thought to be a trilogy, but luckily there are a lot of loose ends so that the series could continue. Had it ended with A Killing Frost it wouldn't have been that weird, but the reader would have been left with a lot of thinking.

Any YA- and Dystopia fan should read this series. Highly recommendable.

This book is read as a part of the YA Dystopian Reading Challenge hosted by Bart's Bookshelf.

This is the 21st post in the NaBloPoMo-challenge. See my page here.