The Young World (Young World, #1)

by Chris Weitz

[leahrosereads]

Any time a novel puts me into a reading slump, I know that the review and my liking of the book are going to go down, dramatically.

I was so close to DNFing THE YOUNG WORLD. It started off interesting. I liked the idea of a world where adults don’t exist, and in this post-apocalyptic world, where kids (under the age of 18) have to fend for themselves, well, it’s an interesting concept to me.

Unfortunately, Chris Weitz could not keep the idea from becoming boring, and I pretty much will blame it on his characters, and then, him making some poor decisions.

So the characters:

Our MC: Jefferson, the geek, the sidekick to his old brother Washington, who has to step up into the leadership role after Washington dies. He doesn’t want it, but he feels obligated. And he’s boring as hell, but I liked his morals (first ⅔ anyway), that I didn’t completely hate the character.

Our second MC, though, I disliked: Donna. She’s our snowflake. You know the girl MC - she’s plain, boring, there’s nothing special about her at all. She likes Star Wars and hates Barbie. She’s just different. In this post-apocalypse where everyone is giving it up because they’re not going to live past 18 anyway, she’s holding onto her virginity, but still having fun in other ways. She slut shames. She teases, but you know, it’s OK because she’s just really different. I absolutely loathed this character.

Peter - The black gay best friend of Donna’s. I liked his snark, but there wasn’t enough Peter to save this novel.

Brainbox - also a geek. Friend of Jefferson’s. Thinks he can find the cure. Saw the ending from a mile away with this character. Everything about him made the ending (which seemed like should Weitz wanted to shock the reader, completely predictable.)

SeeThrough - our little ninja BAMF. She tries so hard to overcompensate for her size and age, and for people to believe she’s really as hard as she seems. She’s not, but she’s still awesome. I liked her.

Kath - Because every YA seems to need a love triangle. Toss away character, and I figured she was.


Onto the poor decisions:

--#1 putting in an unnecessary love triangle. Instead of using those pages for much needed information, Weitz decided to force a love triangle that felt completely forced.

--#2 Relationship between Jefferson and Donna - felt forced through and through.

--#3 Certain conflicts that the characters went through were a little too drawn out, and again, for a first novel in a trilogy, these conflicts took pages away from world building (world building that I believe should have been put in the novel).

--#4 Characters changing personalities on a whim. Our geek hero turns manwhore in 30 seconds. Seemed legit.

--#5 Racing to the finish line. The book ends on a conflict that should have been more drawn out, written properly, and more fully developed. Weitz truly failed to give the reader adequate knowledge on what was going on.

--#6 The world building (what little there is) was poorly executed.

--#7 Giving the reader a reason to care. I didn’t give a fuck about what happened to the characters. This is always an issue when it comes to a series. I should want the characters to be OK, to succeed, to live and love and complete their goal/mission/whatever. If I don’t, yeah, just not a good thing.

Just a random dislike:

--#8(?): Chris, you made Edward Cullen a deity to one of the Mole People? Seriously? That’s just weird.


Sorry this is such a ranty review. So onto the pluses for THE YOUNG WORLD:

--#1 The action really keeps the pace of the novel moving. There’s not any real slow parts of it, and had I been more interested in the book, it wouldn’t have dragged for me the way it did.

--#2 I liked that the characters weren’t all just a bunch of white rich kids. There was race/culture/class diversity with the kids, and I liked it.

--#3 Secondary characters were really fun to meet (for the most part).

--#4 Concept of the story (world without adults) is still a huge plus for me, and something that I enjoyed about the story.


Overall, I’m not going to continue the series, and I honestly wouldn’t recommend THE YOUNG WORLD.