emeliestegbornblixt's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this fast-paced story. It read slightly younger than I was expecting, but honestly that just added to the enjoyment - things that would have annoyed me if this had been a bit more adult and gritty worked quite well. (Which is to say, things fell into place a bit too neatly at the end, but I didn't really mind.) I liked the discussion of humanity's relationship to nature at large, and the celebration of friendship.
This reading experience has also reminded me that I know embarrassingly little about the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, which makes me want to learn more about this topic and about Australia's colonial history (which I remember studying in school around age 11-12, but no more after that, so.... probably got a version of the story that's a bit tidied up and more easy for delicate white people to stomach...) So I guess I have that to thank this for as well, even though that doesn't really say anything about the book itself.
This reading experience has also reminded me that I know embarrassingly little about the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, which makes me want to learn more about this topic and about Australia's colonial history (which I remember studying in school around age 11-12, but no more after that, so.... probably got a version of the story that's a bit tidied up and more easy for delicate white people to stomach...) So I guess I have that to thank this for as well, even though that doesn't really say anything about the book itself.
libraryhauntinglesbian's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
This is my second book by Kwaymullina, and I think that she has so much potential as a writer.
For a debut YA novel written in 2012, I think it had a lot of great aspects despite it's faults. This is definitely geared towards younger readers, so I'm rating as a book for young readers.
It takes a lot of the tropes that were common in YA in 2012, but incorporates them with genuinely unique and interesting ideas. I am so obsessed with the idea of a gang of giant-mind reading lizards, and I thought the character abilities - especially Sleepwalking - were really cool.
The negatives are that it is a very simplistic book. As mentioned, it is geared to a younger audience, so the characters are all very definitely 'good' or 'evil' without much nuance. I also think the way the structure jumps between the present time and past memories might be jarring for some people.
Overall, I thought it was a quick and fun read. I'll likely be reading the rest of this series and looking forward to any more books Kwaymullina releases in future.
For a debut YA novel written in 2012, I think it had a lot of great aspects despite it's faults. This is definitely geared towards younger readers, so I'm rating as a book for young readers.
It takes a lot of the tropes that were common in YA in 2012, but incorporates them with genuinely unique and interesting ideas. I am so obsessed with the idea of a gang of giant-mind reading lizards, and I thought the character abilities - especially Sleepwalking - were really cool.
The negatives are that it is a very simplistic book. As mentioned, it is geared to a younger audience, so the characters are all very definitely 'good' or 'evil' without much nuance. I also think the way the structure jumps between the present time and past memories might be jarring for some people.
Overall, I thought it was a quick and fun read. I'll likely be reading the rest of this series and looking forward to any more books Kwaymullina releases in future.
dani_bugz's review against another edition
2.0
A decidedly mediocre read, at best. Honestly I would have stopped reading 50 pages in had it not been my bookclub choice (so yes.. I finished). It wasn't so terrible I would throw it in the fire, but it was not good. Not good at all. But, that's being said as a 23 year old women, it would be perfect for tweens 11-15.
tehani's review against another edition
4.0
I've heard people talk about this as fantasy, but it felt much more dystopic SF to me. It's probably a solid 3.5, but I round up for Aussie books, particularly debut novels (Kwaymullina has previous publications, but not novel length). I enjoyed the read, thought there were some fabulous ideas and great characters. I wasn't sold on the world-building, and the book suffered a little from the same problem that Veronica Roth's "Divergent" did, in that it was hard to believe the societal structure could be world-wide. The structure was really quite unusual, with a lot of the story taking place in flashbacks as memories, and a frequent quirk of the protagonist realising that something she had thought was true turned out to be something quite different. I think this will do well with the Hunger Games crowd looking for what to read next!
valodniece's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
An interesting post-apocalyptic tale, meshing Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime tales with the X-Men and more traditional YA dystopia tropes - though with some unexpected twists, which put it in a class above many others. I will be reading the next books in the series.
kblincoln's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting for its post-apocalyptic world with citizens bound into cities and folks with powers considered dangerous and in between: monsters such as sabre tooth cats and dinosaurs.
Clever for the ways in which Ashala and her Tribe of illegal powered kids pull off daring rescues and fool the authorities.
Culturally rich for Ashala's connection to the Serpent Grandfather and the literal dreaming (called sleepwalking) here as well as her connection to the trees/Firstwood.
But not to my taste. This reads like a younger YA in its emotional simplicity: the good are good. The traitors are selfish, and the bad guys are just evil for the sake of being evil or crazy. The beginning made me a little skittish, as it showed Ashala being drawn against her will to one of the guards who have captured her from her beloved forest and brought her to be tortured by the bad guys. (it turns out not to be as bad as it sounds, but it also took a while to figure that out).
Ashala is a bit too good in this novel, a bit too chosen. And so for my own taste, not a character I could truly deeply connect with. It's also hard to pull off extended backflashes and extended dreaming well...and in this book there is a lot of both which also made it hard to put down and then pick up and know what was happening.
So I might have veered actually a little more towards 3.5 stars, but in the end, I think it was my own preferences that made the simple feel to the narrative not satisfying for me rather than the quality of the writing.
Clever for the ways in which Ashala and her Tribe of illegal powered kids pull off daring rescues and fool the authorities.
Culturally rich for Ashala's connection to the Serpent Grandfather and the literal dreaming (called sleepwalking) here as well as her connection to the trees/Firstwood.
But not to my taste. This reads like a younger YA in its emotional simplicity: the good are good. The traitors are selfish, and the bad guys are just evil for the sake of being evil or crazy. The beginning made me a little skittish, as it showed Ashala being drawn against her will to one of the guards who have captured her from her beloved forest and brought her to be tortured by the bad guys. (it turns out not to be as bad as it sounds, but it also took a while to figure that out).
Ashala is a bit too good in this novel, a bit too chosen. And so for my own taste, not a character I could truly deeply connect with. It's also hard to pull off extended backflashes and extended dreaming well...and in this book there is a lot of both which also made it hard to put down and then pick up and know what was happening.
So I might have veered actually a little more towards 3.5 stars, but in the end, I think it was my own preferences that made the simple feel to the narrative not satisfying for me rather than the quality of the writing.
raven_morgan's review against another edition
4.0
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf is the first book in Ambelin Kwaymullina's post-apocalyptic/dystopian series, The Tribe. The series itself is marketed as YA fantasy, and while this book does technically fit into that category, I believe it would miss a lot of readers who would otherwise enjoy it.
There's a lot to like about this book. There's an originality to the world that Kwaymullina creates, even though she uses often standard tropes in its creation. An ecological disaster - never fully defined, but implied to have come about because of mankind pillaging the world through greed, and upsetting the Balance - has changed the face of the world. People, too, have changed, with many developing powers - some can cause earthquakes, others can shape the sky to forms they wish, others can read thoughts, to name just a few examples. Those who have powers are tightly controlled by the government (where control equals living in a detention centre), lest they upset the Balance and cause another apocalypse. Those who flee are Illegals, and hunted.
Ashala Wolf is the leader of the group of Illegals who live as the Tribe. This is the story of her interrogation in a detention centre.
It is a fantastic story: Ashala is a fascinating character, as are the other characters we see over the course of the book. What we see of the world is intriguing: we see the giant lizard saurs, and pieces of the Firstwood. And while this isn't like to bother many of the YA target audience, sometimes, reading this as an adult reader, I found it frustrating that we *only* get to see these hints. I feel as though Kwaymullin has actually developed this world (which does feel very much like a post-apocalyptic Australia, though Australia itself in this future does not exist), but we don't get to see *enough* of it. I do hope that more of the worldbuilding will be revealed over the course of the series.
The structure also didn't quite work for me. It feels very much the debut novel it is, as Kwaymullin reaches to peel back the layers of story and truth in a fashion that *almost* works. I actually found myself having to check several times over the first third of the book that this was indeed the first book in the series, since so much was referred to but not explained. It's nice not to see huge infodumps, but there could have been some more backstory explained.
Overall, this is a start to a very promising series by an Australian author, and an extremely accomplished debut. I've really only deducted a star for the structure that didn't quite work for me, and I would recommend this whole-heartedly. I know that if I'd read this as a fifteen-year-old, I would have been dreaming of running away to join the Tribe.
There's a lot to like about this book. There's an originality to the world that Kwaymullina creates, even though she uses often standard tropes in its creation. An ecological disaster - never fully defined, but implied to have come about because of mankind pillaging the world through greed, and upsetting the Balance - has changed the face of the world. People, too, have changed, with many developing powers - some can cause earthquakes, others can shape the sky to forms they wish, others can read thoughts, to name just a few examples. Those who have powers are tightly controlled by the government (where control equals living in a detention centre), lest they upset the Balance and cause another apocalypse. Those who flee are Illegals, and hunted.
Ashala Wolf is the leader of the group of Illegals who live as the Tribe. This is the story of her interrogation in a detention centre.
It is a fantastic story: Ashala is a fascinating character, as are the other characters we see over the course of the book. What we see of the world is intriguing: we see the giant lizard saurs, and pieces of the Firstwood. And while this isn't like to bother many of the YA target audience, sometimes, reading this as an adult reader, I found it frustrating that we *only* get to see these hints. I feel as though Kwaymullin has actually developed this world (which does feel very much like a post-apocalyptic Australia, though Australia itself in this future does not exist), but we don't get to see *enough* of it. I do hope that more of the worldbuilding will be revealed over the course of the series.
The structure also didn't quite work for me. It feels very much the debut novel it is, as Kwaymullin reaches to peel back the layers of story and truth in a fashion that *almost* works. I actually found myself having to check several times over the first third of the book that this was indeed the first book in the series, since so much was referred to but not explained. It's nice not to see huge infodumps, but there could have been some more backstory explained.
Overall, this is a start to a very promising series by an Australian author, and an extremely accomplished debut. I've really only deducted a star for the structure that didn't quite work for me, and I would recommend this whole-heartedly. I know that if I'd read this as a fifteen-year-old, I would have been dreaming of running away to join the Tribe.
malglories's review against another edition
2.0
Cliché as hell, with a weird structure I found frustrating.
bookishlass's review against another edition
4.0
Content warnings: violence, death, mention of suicide attempt
tayladevilee's review against another edition
2.0
I really didn't like this book. I think that the world just wasn't for me!I found it very confusing, and it took me a long time to get my head around everything. I didn't have any really connection to any of the characters at all. Overall i am just really disappointed.