Away We Go by Emil Ostrovski (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Away We Go by Emil Ostrovski April Spisak Ostrovski, Emil Away We Go. Greenwillow, 2016 [288p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-223855-9 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-06-223857-3 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 9-12 There’s a lot to unpack in this complex, nihilistic novel where teens all have a virus (PPV, the Peter Pan Virus) that will kill them before adulthood, assuming the world doesn’t end via the meteor that may hit Earth in a few months. Most teens now reside at “recovery centers,” facilities that mostly just distract them from their imminent deaths and keeps them out of the general population. Noah lives at Westing, an exclusive prep school version of these centers, where at least the intellectual pursuits offered are more challenging. Noah is often bitter, selfish, and self-pitying, but he’s also trying to be the person he knows he should be. This would be a believable combination even in realistic fiction, but it’s even more so in this this dystopian world where teens know they are going to die soon, and everyone seems bent on keeping them locked up and ignored. It’s more remarkable, in fact, that Noah is surrounded by a core group of caring, thoughtful, earnest friends who struggle mightily to keep our narrator from total darkness. The complex organization of the novel requires careful attention—time jumps in sometimes confusing ways, flyers, scripts, and announcements are interleaved with the chapters, and the world building is subtle. Even so, brainy readers who want to see just how grim Holden Caulfield would get if he knew he was dying soon will find this to be a pretty accurate approximation. Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois