Cscott
9/13/2014
Ten year old Melanie is a bright and curious child who loves books and stories, particularly the Greek myths her very favourite teacher, Miss Justineau tells the class. However, it is clear that something is wrong with Melanie and her fellow classmates as they must all be strapped into a chair each morning and wheeled to and from class by special guards.
I must have been living under a rock to not know what Melanie and the other children had become as many reviews mention it. I have never read a book or been interested in reading a book about this before, but I'm glad to say after reading this that I have now overcome those prejudices.
After the shock of finding out what Melanie was I found that I enjoyed this book about survival in a post apocalyptic world. The relationship between Melanie and her teacher Miss Justineau is particularly poignant as it develops through the book and even the stern army guard, Sergent Parks mellows in his regard of Melanie as an individual. The evil scientist, Dr Caldwell stays in character to the bitter end, carrying out hideous experiments on the children to solve the puzzle of why they exist.
The book did drag somewhat in the middle and some editing to tighten up that section would have improved it for me. However, the initial chapters were great and the ending was worth getting to.