After Tomorrow by Gillian Cross
May. 30th, 2013 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
What if you woke up tomorrow and everything had changed?
Money is worthless.
Your friends are gone.
Armed robbers roam the streets.
No one is safe.
For Matt and his little brother, Taco, that nightmare is a reality. Their only hope of survival is to escape through the Channel Tunnel.
But danger waits on the other side … Stay or go. What would you do?
When five British banks all fail at the same time, the country is plunged into a desperate economic crisis. Unemployment soars, there are food shortages and rolling energy blackouts. 12 year-old Matt lives with his younger brother, Taco, his grandmother, mum and step-dad Justin. By bartering and growing their own food they make ends meet but what little they have is threatened when they are labelled scadgers (or hoarders) and their names are added to a website of houses that can be targeted and stolen from.
Faced with increasingly brutal attacks, the family decides to head for the refugee camps in France and Matt’s mum arranges for Bob (a friend of Matt’s dead father). But the French government has announced that it will shortly be closing its border to newcomers and the night the family’s due to leave, Matt’s grandmother has a fall and breaks her leg, leaving her unable to travel. When Matt’s mother decides to stay with her, Matt, Taco and Justin go to France without them where they find that life in the camps is hard and desperate people make for dangerous times ...
Gillian Cross’s novel (shortlisted for the 2013 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize) is an intelligent, thought-provoking look at the plight of economic migrants that flips English children into the role of outsiders. The plot rattles along and at times it’s very moving but while Matt is well-drawn I found the other characters (particularly Bob and Paige) to be a little two-dimensional, there mainly to move along the plot. That said, this is a solid read from the always reliable Cross and I’d recommend checking it out.
It’s easy to empathise with Matt with his shame of being labelled a scadger, his efforts to keep hold of his bike and bike tools as a link to his home and his refusal to learn French because it would mean accepting his situation. I wish there’d been as much development of French-speaking Paige and the shifty Bob who works as a fixer but whose motives become increasingly sinister because they basically exist to keep the plot moving. However Justin’s descent into depression is subtle and effective and Cross doesn’t flinch from showing what life in a refugee camp is like or the hostility of the locals to their new neighbours.
All in all, it’s a solid and decent read that I’d recommend to readers aged 8+.
The Verdict:
Gillian Cross’s novel (shortlisted for the 2013 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize) is an intelligent, thought-provoking look at the plight of economic migrants that flips English children into the role of outsiders. The plot rattles along and at times it’s very moving but while Matt is well-drawn I found the other characters (particularly Bob and Paige) to be a little two-dimensional, there mainly to move along the plot. That said, this is a solid read from the always reliable Cross and I’d recommend checking it out.
AFTER TOMORROW was released in the UK on 4th April 2013. Thanks to Amazon Vine for the ARC of this book.
Money is worthless.
Your friends are gone.
Armed robbers roam the streets.
No one is safe.
For Matt and his little brother, Taco, that nightmare is a reality. Their only hope of survival is to escape through the Channel Tunnel.
But danger waits on the other side … Stay or go. What would you do?
When five British banks all fail at the same time, the country is plunged into a desperate economic crisis. Unemployment soars, there are food shortages and rolling energy blackouts. 12 year-old Matt lives with his younger brother, Taco, his grandmother, mum and step-dad Justin. By bartering and growing their own food they make ends meet but what little they have is threatened when they are labelled scadgers (or hoarders) and their names are added to a website of houses that can be targeted and stolen from.
Faced with increasingly brutal attacks, the family decides to head for the refugee camps in France and Matt’s mum arranges for Bob (a friend of Matt’s dead father). But the French government has announced that it will shortly be closing its border to newcomers and the night the family’s due to leave, Matt’s grandmother has a fall and breaks her leg, leaving her unable to travel. When Matt’s mother decides to stay with her, Matt, Taco and Justin go to France without them where they find that life in the camps is hard and desperate people make for dangerous times ...
Gillian Cross’s novel (shortlisted for the 2013 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize) is an intelligent, thought-provoking look at the plight of economic migrants that flips English children into the role of outsiders. The plot rattles along and at times it’s very moving but while Matt is well-drawn I found the other characters (particularly Bob and Paige) to be a little two-dimensional, there mainly to move along the plot. That said, this is a solid read from the always reliable Cross and I’d recommend checking it out.
It’s easy to empathise with Matt with his shame of being labelled a scadger, his efforts to keep hold of his bike and bike tools as a link to his home and his refusal to learn French because it would mean accepting his situation. I wish there’d been as much development of French-speaking Paige and the shifty Bob who works as a fixer but whose motives become increasingly sinister because they basically exist to keep the plot moving. However Justin’s descent into depression is subtle and effective and Cross doesn’t flinch from showing what life in a refugee camp is like or the hostility of the locals to their new neighbours.
All in all, it’s a solid and decent read that I’d recommend to readers aged 8+.
The Verdict:
Gillian Cross’s novel (shortlisted for the 2013 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize) is an intelligent, thought-provoking look at the plight of economic migrants that flips English children into the role of outsiders. The plot rattles along and at times it’s very moving but while Matt is well-drawn I found the other characters (particularly Bob and Paige) to be a little two-dimensional, there mainly to move along the plot. That said, this is a solid read from the always reliable Cross and I’d recommend checking it out.
AFTER TOMORROW was released in the UK on 4th April 2013. Thanks to Amazon Vine for the ARC of this book.
