Wild Things: YA Grown-Up discussion
Historical
>
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M. T. Anderson
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Emily
(new)
Jul 17, 2009 04:00AM
I just finished this book. I loved it, and I'm still trying to figure it out on a lot of levels. It's a very different book, both stylistically and content-wise. Essentially, it's the story of a young man who is a slave in Boston during the American Revolution. His masters are scientists in the very eighteenth-century sense of the world (interested in all branches of knowledge, kind of crazy, not very self-reflective, etc.). Octavian struggles to make his own place in the fight for liberty. This book does not shy away from the use of big words to talk about its big ideas. For those of you who have read it, what age group would you recommend it for? Do you know any young adults who have read the book? As an adult I enjoyed the book, and I think there needs to be more YA fiction that addresses issues of racism and history, but I wonder how accessible it would be for its intended audience.
reply
|
flag
I haven't read this yet, but it's been on my TBR since, oh I don't know, it came out...
Ditto... don't know when I'll get to it *sigh*
yeah...there is a lot to ponder over while reading it..and after reading it.I don't know if I would have read it back in the day or not...because like you said...all those philosophical ideas and big words probably would have put me off.
Misty and Hayes - It's definitely worth getting to. It's a surprisingly fast read, in no small part because (in my edition at least) the chapters start 3/4ths of the way down the page and last between one and ten pages, usually. Allison - Yeah, I'm definitely still processing. Maybe I would have liked it in high school, with its different take on (then boring) history, but by that point I was shunning the YA section as too fluffy and young.
Emily wrote: "Maybe I would have liked it in high school, with its different take on (then boring) history, but by that point I was shunning the YA section as too fluffy and young."Isn't it funny how we do that as teens, but now we're all back here as adults...
Misty wrote: Isn't it funny how we do that as teens, but now we're all back here as adults..."There's definitely a full circle thing going on...
