The Twyning

by Terence Blacker

In a harsh and dangerous world, a rat and a boy must each choose their way as their fates become inextricably linked.

Efren is a young rat, unnoticed and timid among the kingdom of rats living in the London sewers. When the king dies, leaving the kingdom in upheaval, only Efren dares to journey into the human world, where he discovers a human doctor’s plan to destroy London’s entire rat population. Meanwhile, Peter, otherwise known as Dogboy, does odd jobs for both the scheming doctor and the town ratcatcher. But his gift for understanding animals — even rats — forces him to decide where his allegiances truly lie. Dogboy and Efren, along with the waifish girl Caz and her pet rat, Malaika, set out to test the strengths of friendship and loyalty against the gut-wrenching cruelties of the world.

• ISBN10: 0763669024
• ISBN13: 9780763669027
• Publish Date: 9 September 2014 (first published 20 December 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Candlewick Press,U.S.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 432
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780763669027

Reviews

[Lianne]

I received an ARC of this novel courtesy of ArmchairBEA 2014 and the publishers. This review in its entirety was originally posted at caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2014/08/07/review-the-twyning/

The author created a very peculiar world with The Twyning, a twist on your good ol’ exterminator vs the rat population. The world he created in this novel reminded me of Brian Jacques’ Redwall series and Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere with the overall gloomy atmosphere, the mysterious atmosphere and the underground world. The rat kingdom has its own society and practices that was quite complex, especially as various factions begin to vye for power.

While the characters–both rat and human–come from different backgrounds and life experiences, they weren’t really interesting or garnered my attention enough to care about the events that unfolded for then. Caz was the only character who had an interesting back story that had me really intrigued, but otherwise I honestly wasn’t compelled to know what happened next, except to know whether everyone made it through their respective ordeals.

The Twyning was weirdly interesting enough with a curious world-building involved but otherwise it wasn’t really for me. I’m also not sure if the target audience will enjoy this novel; I thought the language used was a little too stiff, more for adult fantasy, than for children’s/young adult fantasy. But each to their own. I may not have enjoyed it but I’m sure there’s some young readers out there who would relish this story.