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130th out of 155 books
—
455 voters
Alis
by
Naomi Rich
At fourteen, Alis has never been outside her strict religious community. But when her parents arrange for her to marry a forty-year-old man, she flees desperately to the dangerous, unfamiliar city. She learns quickly that the only way to survive there is to become a thief?or worse. Facing an impossible choice between a forced marriage or life on the streets, Alis seizes co...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published
February 19th 2009
by Viking Juvenile
(first published September 25th 2007)
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Reviewed by Karin Librarian for TeensReadToo.com
Alis lives with her mother and father in the strict religious community of Freeborne. She spends her days helping her mother with household chores, tending the sick, and serving The Maker. At fourteen, she hasn't given much thought to her future. She just assumes that one day she will get married, have children, and become a respected Elder of the community like her mother.
But Alis gets a shocking surprise. Her parents announce she is to be married...more
Alis lives with her mother and father in the strict religious community of Freeborne. She spends her days helping her mother with household chores, tending the sick, and serving The Maker. At fourteen, she hasn't given much thought to her future. She just assumes that one day she will get married, have children, and become a respected Elder of the community like her mother.
But Alis gets a shocking surprise. Her parents announce she is to be married...more
Alis, at fourteen, has a bright future planned out for herself in her mind. She plans to marry when the time is right, raise a family, and become a learned and important Elder in her strict religious community, like her mother is.
But then her parents tell her that she is to marry the community's 40-year-old preacher. Alis is horrified, and determined to find for herself a better fate. She runs away, bound for the big city, where she finds that it is more difficult for a girl alone to live than s...more
But then her parents tell her that she is to marry the community's 40-year-old preacher. Alis is horrified, and determined to find for herself a better fate. She runs away, bound for the big city, where she finds that it is more difficult for a girl alone to live than s...more
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14-year-old Alis has always been happy with her life in the community of believers. She has always assumed that she would marry, have children, and become a respected Elder like her mother...until her parents tell her that she must marry the Minister, a stern man more than twice her age.
Alis runs away from her small community, and falls in love with a boy named Luke. Then her circumstances change again, and she runs again, this time to a bigger city to seek her older brother. Life in the big cit...more
Alis runs away from her small community, and falls in love with a boy named Luke. Then her circumstances change again, and she runs again, this time to a bigger city to seek her older brother. Life in the big cit...more
One of the WORST BOOKS EVER. I cannot believe there are people who read this and gave it more than one star. The main character, Alis, learns absolutely nothing and is weak and pathetic from beginning to end. It starts off with her not wanting to blindly listen to the elders/church in her community. Ok so far. She thinks she should try and run away because she does not want to marry the old minister who she has known her whole life. Ok, fine.
So she starts off begging people for help. Wah, wah,...more
So she starts off begging people for help. Wah, wah,...more
Alis lives with her mother and father in the strict religious community of Freeborne. She spends her days helping her mother with household chores, tending the sick, and serving The Maker. At fourteen, she hasn’t given much thought to her future. She just assumes that one day she will get married, have children, and become a respected Elder of the community like her mother, but Alis gets a shocking surprise. Her parents announce she is to be married to the minister of Freeborne. A man she has gr...more
Alis's journey was interesting, I wondered at how she might escape or if she'd end up forced to follow the plans of others. A lot happened in the story and it could have been fleshed out more, but still seemed paced decently. The villain was a jerk you really wanted to see knocked down a peg or two. My only real problem with the story was the world that it took place in. At first I couldn't tell if it was a post-apocalyptic dystopia or if we were in some cult society closed away from the world (...more
In the fictional community of Freeborne, Alis is fourteen years old and told by her parents that she is to be married to the town’s 40 year old preacher, Minister Galin, because it is the will of the Maker. Alis is given a few months to get used to the idea, but the more she thinks about it, the more it sounds pretty darn gross. While pondering her fate, Alis befriends a sickly young woman, Sarah, who is visiting Freeborne for a few months. When Sarah is summoned home by her husband, Alis asks,...more
It's difficult to know what to say about Alis. It's not really bad but it's not really good either. The story was interesting enough to keep me reading but some of the plot seemed a little unrealistic, like how quickly Alis found her brother. Another thing that put me off was that it kept skipping. Not a day or two, quite frequently weeks and months had gone by. I wouldn't mind this but the plot didn't really let me getting settled into any particular part of Alis' life before skipping again and...more
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I liked this book very much. It is about a 15-year-old girl who lives in a very strict religious community. Their rules and beliefs are very old fashioned and harsh, but Alis tolerates it because she believes that it is the will of the Maker, that she obey these rules. She seems to be one of the few in the community that questions the authority of the Elders, even though one of them is her mother. When she is arranged to marry a 40 year old man in the community, she believes the only way out is...more
Alis lives in a very strict, very secluded religious community. When her parents inform her that she has been pledged to marry the 50-year old leader of the community, Alis decides she must flee. She escapes to the city where she finds her brother and manages to survive for months by joining his gang of thieves. When disaster strikes, Alis decides to return to the community and find Luke, the boy she would have chosen to marry had the choice been hers. Upon her discovery that Luke has died, Alis...more
Set in an "unspecified past" (Colonial America?) instead of an unspecified future, Alis is another dystopic YA novel. This novel was a quick and suspenseful read. However, the end was unsatisfying. Some issues had no closure, and while I felt sympathy for Alis throughout, by the end I found her selfish with few redeeming qualities. But then again, she is only 16. I can only imagine that some of the question marks will lend themselves to a sequel as the last sentance of the book could be ominous...more
I thought this book was interesting throughout so that I wanted to keep reading it, but in the end that didn’t turn out to be enough. Everything turned out just a little bit too ordinary, and I couldn't place the time or location of the story. Alis lives in a religious society, though which religion and what their beliefs actually are aren't completely stated. She's expected to accept an arranged marriage to a man, the minister of her community, who is much older than herself. To get away from t...more
Okay, this one was on my list because someone in my Mock Prinz group nominated it...UNDESERVEDLY!! It was a page turner, but that's about all I can say for it. There's no thematic depth, the characters are wooden and unrelatable, and the novel is set in some combination of puritan New England and Dickensian London, probably because the author didn't want to do any of the historical research required for a real setting. Naomi, sorry if you're listening. Some people really liked this book, but the...more
Jul 29, 2010
DubaiReader
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2010,
young-adult
Missing essential details.
I enjoyed the basic story in this book but it was tainted for me by the fact that it took place somewhere in a nondescript country amongst the people of some nondescript cult. It could have been Mormon-esque, in America, but we were never told. This made it less of an historical fition novel and considerably detracted from my interest.
The central character is Alis. She is just fourteen when she is told that she will be marrying the 40-something Minister of her community...more
I enjoyed the basic story in this book but it was tainted for me by the fact that it took place somewhere in a nondescript country amongst the people of some nondescript cult. It could have been Mormon-esque, in America, but we were never told. This made it less of an historical fition novel and considerably detracted from my interest.
The central character is Alis. She is just fourteen when she is told that she will be marrying the 40-something Minister of her community...more
This book was nothing like I thought it was gonna be, but in a good way! I honestly thought that this book was just gonna be "Amish" type girl leaves the community falls in love with the guy she cant have and they live happily ever after. Well that was not the case. Alis had to go through so much in this book, and I think that's why I enjoyed it. Also it kept me wanting more. Not like an OMG I have to keep reading, but it kept my attention so that I wanted to know what was gonna happen next. And...more
A surprisingly quick read with an underlying theme of freedom & the consequences of our choices/actions. Some readers may see negative undertones toward religion within the novel, but I did not (as my own religion values freedom & free agency). I expected a the story to go a particular route, but there were some surprising twists & turns that caught me unawares. A very good ending, happy in some ways, but not in everything - Alis experiences both heartbreak & happiness.
It was a good read.
Good moral to it.
Very predictable but enjoyable to read and imagine .
It took place in London in old times when people lived in religious communities and Ali's lives in one of those but she isn't the kind of girl to defy everything - but when se is forced to marry her 40 year old minister she feels like she has no choice but to leave the community nd go into the city where no young girl like herself should have gone
Good moral to it.
Very predictable but enjoyable to read and imagine .
It took place in London in old times when people lived in religious communities and Ali's lives in one of those but she isn't the kind of girl to defy everything - but when se is forced to marry her 40 year old minister she feels like she has no choice but to leave the community nd go into the city where no young girl like herself should have gone
While I was reading it, I liked it, and was very engrossed by it. My major complaint, though, and perhaps it's not worth the drop from 3 stars to 2, is that I couldn't tell where it was set. I thought it was the US, but then they kept talking about escaping over the ocean, so perhaps they were escaping to the colonies? That bothered me a lot. And while it was very engrossing while I read it, it was fairly forgettable after I read it.
This one is hard to pinpoint-- almost historical fiction, sort of dystopian, an imagined reality.... It is, however, a great fiction companion to The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, and other Puritan-esque books.
Set in an unknown time that is clearly the past, in an unkown location, 14 year old Alis resists marrying her 40 year old minister Galen, setting off a series of events that includes living in a group society even more strict that her own Freeborn, meeting her true love, running away to th...more
Set in an unknown time that is clearly the past, in an unkown location, 14 year old Alis resists marrying her 40 year old minister Galen, setting off a series of events that includes living in a group society even more strict that her own Freeborn, meeting her true love, running away to th...more
This book was just okay. It had some very interesting characters, but none of them were really well fleshed-out. I felt like it took a REALLY long time for the book to take off. I kept thinking it was heading in a different direction which was confusing. I guess the ending was the biggest misstep. The book was raw and gritty, but the ending was wrapped up in a neat little package. It didn't fit with the rest of the novel.
I was surprised by the depth of this story. I was honestly expecting a shallow typical for teens "girl escapes cult and meets boy" story. However, it was well written and richly drawn tale and I enjoyed it a lot. I though Rich also did a great job on the ending, she could have really ruined the book if she wasn't careful, but she pulled it off in a way that was both satisfying and poignant, but without being perfect.
I liked the love story and the friendships. I had a hard time understanding the time frame of this book because the characters talked as if they were from the past but some of the stuff that happened seemed more like the future. The only conclusion I could come up with is that this book is based in some other world with people like us but who have different religions. I did like the book though.
May 28, 2010
Victoria
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Victoria by:
I got lucky
Shelves:
2010,
historical-fiction
Very good! It grabbed my attention from the very first few lines. I must admit my favorite character was not the main one but oters like Edge, Joel, and Luke altougth I did like Alis. The only thing that left me sad was the ending. I was... dissapointed. There had been such a big buildup to the finale but then it fell slightly flat. But otherwise it was excellent.
I liked the premise and the writing was excellent but the heroine was a tad too whiny and needy. Possibly because it is written for YA readers but really? She needed to suck it up a tad and deal with her situation. Her husband was not abusive or mean and generally wanted her to be happy. She never saw that and that was sad.
An small town/ agrarian society that's becoming more and more conservative...and not in a good way. Alis has been raised in a closed community then finds out that she's to be married to the much older minister of her community. She basically runs away then the story gets worse. It's okay. Interesting world.
Not nearly as good as I hoped. It's set in an unspecified place, time and the religion followed by Alis and her family is meant to serve as a stand in for any more conservative religious community (Amish, Puritan, etc) but without having decided what its meant to be, the book failed to create a believe world. Also, the plot is completely contrived in a way that I think I wouldn't have minded as a teen, but was completely annoyed with as an adult.
I really enjoyed this novel. It had a mix of city dangers, arranged marriages, and domestic abuse involved in it. The plot twisted and turned and kept me intrigued and curious as to where the book would finally end up at. I was surprised I enjoyed the book as much as I did.
This book was not at all what I expected. In the first few pages, I thought I had the plot pegged - girl will leave strict Amish-like community as she is forced to marry a man much older than her. She flees community and meets a boy, falls in love, the story will be about their star-crossed romance.
Wrong.
In fact, my interest in this book was the fact that while some of the above was true, most of the book was not about teenage heart pounding, but about the questioning of absolute authority (wh...more
Wrong.
In fact, my interest in this book was the fact that while some of the above was true, most of the book was not about teenage heart pounding, but about the questioning of absolute authority (wh...more
Teen fiction about 14-year old Alis, whose parents have arranged a marriage for her with the community’s 40-year old minister. Alis decides to flee her religious community, but eventually must return and struggle between obedience and free will.
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