Author: Alex McCall (no website that I could find)
Publisher: Floris Books
Rating: worthy!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review. Since this is a new novel, this review is less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!
P142 Lizzie says, "They only want to help us" and Jesse's response is "No, they're not." which makes no sense. "No, they don't." would have sounded much more appropriate for the verb tense. The only way the existing response would make sense is if Lizzie had said something like "They're only wanting to help us."
Jesse is a co-hero of this novel telling it from first person PoV which I normally detest, but this novel managed to make it bearable somehow, and I think it’s because while Jesse was always telling the story, he was never promoting himself, merely relating events. Jesse's brother, who is never named, was always ready for the end of world; he had plans for anything from aliens to zombies, but he disappeared eight months ago when the chickens attacked. Was he not ready for whatever it was that befell him? Whatever it was, Jesse never finds him.
This novel starts out in a library, which I really appreciated, just as I appreciated the fact that the page numbers are enclosed in eggs, and the demarcation symbol for breaks in text is a broken eggshell. Jesse and two other guys are at the library in Aberdeen, Scotland, uninterested in listening to Jesse's 'a chicken walks into a library' joke. Unlike the chicken, they're not there to borrow books, either. The meeting which they had planned fell through: the other party didn't show, but a large, nameless horror did, and they only just got away and back to the train station where they live.
"Living in a chicken apocalypse is not quite what you’d expect." - so begins chapter two! Jesse and his partners were hoping to hook up with the Library Gang for an exchange of ideas and intelligence, and maybe to work together. Jesse is part of a gang, too, but you'll have to read the book to find the name of his gang! Trust me, you'll never guess the name of the gang which Jesse hangs with in a train station - not in a million gazillion years....
In an hilarious parody of YA tropes, all the adults had been taken first by these evil robot chickens, leaving only those under the age of sixteen. The chickens are amazing at guessing people's ages; they could have made a fortune as a carnival side-show, but well, they had to go the world domination route, and there you are. Or were, depending on your age. So most children have survived by banding together into these gangs, but some apparently made it on their own. One such young woman is The Ambassador. She was year older than Jesse and filled him with dread, as indeed all girls should do when you're his age. The Ambassador stood out as filling a person with more dread even than they who were renowned amongst young women in the filling-with-dread department, as being significantly above average efficiency dread-fillers. The Ambassador is not only a girl you see, which is bad enough, but she's also wise, independent, capable, and rather muscular. In short, your typical mid-teen boy's (and all-too-many men's) nightmare.
Imagine Jesse's horror, then, when gang boss Noah tells Jesse he has a job for him, and leads him straight to The Ambassador's compartment at the end of the train - that would be the last car on the straight-ahead. The Ambassador doesn’t even know Jesse. She refers to him merely as 'The Joke Teller' (which I guess means she really does know him after all). His jokes are nearly all puns and are consistently awful (apart from that first one!), but may well appeal to the age range this novel is aimed at. The Ambassador's name turns out to be Rayna, and she and Jesse end-up tied together by a cunning plan to take down the chicken empire.
That was by far the most outstanding part of this novel. Jesse and Rayna work together without any hint whatsoever that one is male and the other female. It’s never an issue which is pretty stunning when you think about it, especially when considered in the light of the fact that most YA and older children's novels can’t get through a chapter without some remark that's gender engendered or relationship related. In McCall's novel, this never happens. Male and females have true equality and that's really rather remarkable (and all the more sad for being so). For that alone I would recommend this novel and rate it worthy, but there's more to it than that.
Yes, the story is absurd! That's a given! Deal with it! If you can't handle the chicken get out of the coop. But within the framework of that premise, the story is pretty good. It moves along, real things happen in real ways, people get things done, plans are thwarted, people rally and come up with a new plan, and in the end, things work out. Given the subject matter, it's impressive that violence is minimal, and pleasantly tame. I especially liked the "fight" between Rayna and the bruiser working for Cody - the leader of the group she seeks out for help in plucking them thar chickens. It’s that simple. Why don’t more writers get that?
This novel is a worthy read and it's especially worthy if you're of the age range for which it’s intended.
