Thursday, November 19, 2009

....Octavian Nothing....

This story was written with YA readers in mind. It tells the story of a young boy, Octavian. Not much is known about him at the beginning of the novel. We know he lives with his mother in a house with a lot of men. These men, unlike him and his mother, do not have names they go by numbers. We find out that the men are philosophers and they are training Octavian. He is used as an experiment to see if the African race and the European race is equal, or is one better than the other.

Upon first reading this novel I did not feel it was for YA readers. After a class discussion I feel like that would be underestimating all young adult readers. The writing style in this book is very different from all the other books discussed in this blog. It is more sophisticated. It takes a while, maybe 50 or 60 pages, to become accustomed to the writing style of MT Anderson. The issues raised in this book are somewhat different than other YA books. This book tackles issues like race. It may get YA readers thinking about how they feel about their own race.

I feel like the only reason this book is classified as YA is because the main character is a young man. If it had been an adult this book could have easily gone with adult literature. The most important thing in this novel is to make sure you discuss it in your class.

If I had to recommend this book to a particular group, it would be seniors in an AP literature class. This book could be easy to get into if you are able to discuss why things are happening, and the significance of some events that take place in the book.

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