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Jump to navigationJump to searchPure by Julianna Baggott (view source)
Revision as of 17:01, 10 October 2011
, 17:01, 10 October 2011no edit summary
While the twists in the tale that happen on that journey make the book a real page turner, what really kept my interest were the fantastic characters. Visually unique, often quite terrifyingly so, they are complex creations who continue to develop and surprise as the story unfolds. The prevailing mood of the story is very dark, so these vital characters were essential to keeping me reading.
''Pure'' is a young adult crossover novel, mining the same vein as [[The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins|The Hunger Games]] with resilient young characters fighting against overwhelming odds. A lot of what happens in ''Pure'' doesn't stack up very well if you try to assess it as science fiction. It's not magical realism either, so much as magical non-realism: an elaborate, nightmarish fantasy. I kept thinking how apt illustrations by Mervyn Peake or Clive Barker would be for the book, as there were certainly touches of ''Gormenghast'' and [[Abarat by Cllive Clive Barker|Abarat]] in it.
At the very end of the book the author mentions how research for the novel led her to accounts of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She hopes that ''Pure'' will direct people to nonfiction accounts of these events which we cannot afford to forget. I found that this was exactly where I turned on completing ''Pure'' and suspect that I will not be the only reader who follows her suggestion.
