Thursday, July 01, 2010

While I Live - The Ellie Chronicles I by John Marsden

While I Live is the first book in the Ellie Chronicles which is sort of a sequel to John Marsden's Tomorrow-series (the link is for my review of the first book in the Tomorrow-series). I really loved that series, and wanted to read more about what happened to Ellie, Homer, Lee and the other friends and enemies after the war ended. So far, so good.

While I Live did not completely live up to my (yes, they were hígh) expectations, but it wasn't a complete waste of time either. Ellie is back on the farm with her parents and trying to live as normal a life as possible with school, farm work, friends and speculations about love and boyfriends. Not easy, considering what she went through during the war, but she's trying and things go okay.

Rumours at school and in the town of Wirrawee are rife. It seems like certain cladestine groups have taken it upon themselves to find people still missing from the war and, if and when they find them, liberate them. Ellie is too busy and caught up in personal problems to pay much attention at first, but after a while certains things do that she knows that she has to investigate what it is that goes on.

Even though the book begins with a very dramatic scene, I didn't feel that anything apart from page after page about farming and cows was really happening. I had to read more than halfway until there was some action. And while the character descriptions are good as ever, there were also things which didn't really make sense to me. I know its fiction, so I am prepared to accept many things, but still some things didn't feel right. I am going to read the other two in this series, not because I was blown away by this one, but because I want to know what happens to Ellie and her friends and because even though I have to admit that I found While I Live rather boring, I am not completely turned off.

4 comments:

Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness) said...

Cool, I didn't know Marsden wrote more about Ellie in a new series. It's too bad it wasn't that great though, I would have been excited to read it (after I finish the whole other series, which I never managed to do).

Beth F said...

I absolutely am going to read this series because, like you, I really need to know what happens to Ellie. I'm sorry it isn't as great as the Tomorrow series because I'm reading the three books anyway.

Louise said...

Thanks Beth and Kim. I am also going to read the rest of the Ellie Chronicles, and this first one, although there were times when it was boring, does hold some promise!

Julia Phillips Smith said...

'I didn't feel that anything apart from page after page about farming and cows was really happening.'

LOL! (burn)

I'm glad that the hold of this character makes you want to keep going even through parts you consider painfully dull. I tend to chug along through a book no matter what. I figure I can always learn how to avoid writing similar stuff by paying attention to what doesn't work for me.