Too many hours I will never have back.

I really didn't like the writing style. It was choppy and blah. I don't like to read a book like a screen play. The characters were flat and boring. I couldn't connect with any of them, nor did I care about them at all.

This had such great promise, but the execution was horrible. ( )

I'll admit it, I requested this book simply because it was all about teens ruling a dystopian world. Sure, I've read stories similar to The Young World before. It still never stops me from wanting to read the next one. I love seeing how each new author tackles the important points of a society like this. How the authors perceive young people, and how they would behave if a catastrophic event like this actually happened. I was eager to see what Weitz would do, and I had high hopes for this book.

First off, kudos go to Chris Weitz for explaining how the Sickness came about. Is it something that is likely to happen in real life? Probably not. Am I happy that I wasn't left wondering how on Earth only teens were left in the world? Yes, absolutely. If, as an author, you take the time to share with me where your whole story stems from, I'm happy to follow along. I'll suspend disbelief to enjoy the tale that you've woven. Just give me something to latch onto. Weitz did just that, and it made me one very happy reader.

I was also fairly enamored with the society aspect in this story. The stark contrast between the small community that Jefferson and his brother set up, and the other bands of kids around them, was interesting. I liked that, depending on who was in charge, each group of teens had their own laws, their own caste systems, essentially whatever it was that tenuously held them together. It made for a read that raised a lot of questions, and I appreciated it.

What I didn't like so much, as reflected by my rating, was the way that the narrative was done. Jefferson and Donna were our two main characters, and they couldn't be more different if they tried. Jefferson was quiet, intelligent, and mostly peaceful. Donna was rowdy, opinionated, and honestly kind of annoying at times. I didn't mind that story skipped back and forth between these two. I only wished that they didn't have such different ways of relaying their pieces of the story. It was disorienting, and frustrating.

In fact, I wasn't a fan of most of the characters. They felt like cut-outs. Like people who were included in order to make sure the group was rounded out. You have your brainy/jack of all trades guy, your unassuming girl who is actually a ninja, the flamboyant guy for comedy relief, and then Jefferson and Donna to round it all out. I didn't dislike these characters. I just never connected with them. So three stars to The Young World for great world-building and for actually letting me in on the secret of the Sickness! I see a lot of people definitely enjoying this book. I say, give it a shot. ( )

Cliffhanger! ( )

I am more than a few years out of the demographic that THE YOUNG WORLD is aimed at, but I enjoy reading the occasional YA fantasy/scifi series, such as the GONE books by Michael Grant, and I am a sucker for a good end of civilization apocalypse story. Those are the elements that led me to pick up THE YOUNG WORLD and give it a try despite some rather negative reviews online, and while I understand where those readers were coming from, I think the majority of them were too harsh.

The story is told through the POV’s of two characters, Jefferson and Donna, survivors of one of those made to order viruses beloved by authors of end of the world fiction, one that conveniently kills all of the adults and younger children, while apparently anyone going through puberty is immune; the problem being that once puberty is done with you, the virus gets you. Set in New York City a couple of years after the epidemic that ended the world as they knew it, Jefferson, Donna, and the rest of their small tribe precariously try to get by amid the ruins of civilization, while the rest of the world around them has gone full Mad Max. When one of the tribe thinks he has found some clues that might lead to a cure, five of the teens set out on a journey, under Jefferson’s leadership, to try and save themselves. Soon they are exchanging gunfire with gangs, escaping cannibals in a library, attempting to blend into a Times Square market where everything, including human flesh is for sale, all in an attempt to get to Long Island and a chance at salvation. It’s the kind of through the paces plot we’ve seen many times before in books where it is not the destination, but the journey.

The characters are mostly YA archetypes, Jefferson is the nice guy who wants to do right, while Donna is the insecure girl who puts up a false bravado to mask her feelings; there’s a gay dude who can’t stop reminding everyone they are gay, the requisite brainy nerd who somehow manages to figure out things that stumped a roomful of researchers at the CDC, and an Asian girl who is, of course, good at martial arts. The dialogue is not very believable, it reads like a movie script. And this being the first book of a trilogy, there is no final resolution at the end, but the usual twist that no one saw coming, mainly because there was no foreshadowing at all. The author, Chirs Weitz, directed TWILIGHT: NEW MOON, and co-wrote AMERICAN PIE, so he knows how to create pop culture teens; he also co-wrote ROGUE ONE, the best Star Wars film since EMPIRE.

The biggest problem I have with THE YOUNG WORLD, and many other books of its type, is that the back story is much better than the main story; what I mean is, the story of how the Sickness spread through New York and then around the world, and ended civilization, is much more compelling. I’d rather meet Jefferson and Donna and all the rest before their world ends, see the people they once were, and how they dealt with the apocalypse that befell them, how they managed in those first hours and then days when there were suddenly no parents, and no rules, and no authority to make them do anything. To me, that would have been the better story; it’s how Stephen King did it in THE STAND, the GONE WITH THE WIND of all epidemic ends the world stories.

Still, THE YOUNG WORLD is a quick read and an easy read, and if it does not hit the ball out of the park, it is a solid base hit for fans of the genre, and I will read the sequel, THE NEW ORDER, just to see how that twist plays out. ( )

So...a post apocalyptic world that teenagers rule. This doesn't do anything new with the subgenre - it appears to have just borrowed from all the others, reordered different pieces, re-named different characters. If you like the concept, but want to see it actually done well with interesting characters, check out The Tribe (a television series), Lord of the Flies, The Girl Who Owned a City, and a few dozen others. Plus there's the bonus of oddly-placed racism. The white-majority formerly-affluent section of the city is all-accepting, all-inclusive. But the black-dominant and Hispanic-dominant sections? Nope, race-wars. ( )