Rebecca Carey
The Paw Print
“The Young World” by Chris Weitz is the first book in The Young World Trilogy. It was released July 29, 2014 and was published by Little, Brown Company. The novel takes place in New York City after a mysterious sickness swept through and wiped out the entire population. Only adults and young children were affected by the sickness but teenagers survived and formed tribes that rule various parts of the city. The problem is that the teenagers survived because their hormones in their bodies keep the sickness at bay. However, upon the teenagers turning 18 they die because they are past the years when hormones affect their bodies. They also are unable to reproduce, therefore the concern is that the world will eventually end.
The book is written from two main viewpoints: Jefferson and Donna. Jefferson is the leader of the Washington Square tribe and is secretly in love with Donna. A tribe member, Brainbox, finds an abstract from a science journal discussing the sickness and how it came to be. So Brainbox, Jefferson, Donna, and Peter, a friend of Donna’s, head out to the main branch of New York library in hopes to find the article to the abstract. Along the way they encounter other tribes who are out for revenge and exchange fire. After finding the article Jefferson and the crew decide to head on to ‘save all of humanity.’
“The Young World” covers a lot of topics that are nowadays relevant and how irrelevant they seem when the world is coming to an end. One of the topics is how all technology such as Facebook and phones may seem like a necessity in the world we live in now but when the world is coming to the end suddenly they are irrelevant. An example of this is Peter’s room; he has decorated it to look like a Facebook page including that people can write on his ‘wall.’ Another topic is how advertising and stores that once reminded the person of emotions and memories of that product or service when the world was full of living people. When the world is coming to an end suddenly those stores and advertisements don’t matter. “The Young World” is also an interesting take on how teenagers would behave if there were no adults in the world to look after them and to bring order to chaos.
The author, Chris Weitz, is trying to show how things and activities that seem important today would lose all meaning if something drastic happened such as the world coming to an end. He shows this through various topics that are covered throughout the novel by Jefferson and Donna. The two contrasting views, male and female, are very well done and show how two very different teenagers and genders would react to the sudden change of events in their lives. It was a very captivating story and I found I couldn’t put it down until the very end. I cannot wait until the next book in The Young World Trilogy is released. “The Young World” can be found at Wal-Mart for $19.00 or online with the ISBN 978-0-316-22629-5. “The New Order,” the second book in the trilogy, is set to be released in July of 2015.
What’s Been Said…