While I Live

Geschreven bij The Ellie Chronicles 1 - While I Live

I find it difficult to judge this book on its own. I just finished reading the tomorrow series for the third time and by now im so completely familiar with and committed to Ellie that i'd probably read a book about her taking a crap.
I do think its not as well written as the first series.For example, without spoiling anything, it takes the book about 3 pages to go from zero to full on total intense action/drama. That is fine by me since i put down the Tomorrow series a few hours earlier, but i can imagine it being kind of sudden for someone who picks it up after a year. Another thing that kind of annoyed me was the seemingly less realistic reactions of the non-main characters to events. Im going to use an example now that could be considered a SPOILER so be warned. Ellie ends up killing again to save someone from her village. The only thing we read about it after the actual event is her lawyer saying "i heard about your heroic actions, well done". At that point i thought to myself 'wait, a 16-17 year old girl who lost so much just killed 4 people drowning a house in blood and that is the reaction she gets?'. (END OF SPOILER)
It is definitely different from the first series. It has significantly less action which could be considered boring by some. I tend to disagree. The original Tomorrow series in my opinion wasnt so much about the action as it was about its effects on the mind of Ellie. This is shown quite well in the movie adaptation which didnt have that inner monologue and as such came of ass a badly acted cliche action movie instead of a deep drama.
As such i wasnt bored while reading it. I just spend well over a thousand pages reading about the action they went through and when the first series finally ended i wasnt hungering for more action. Instead i was burning with curiosity on how her life after the war would be. In fact, if it was up to me, i'd been fine with no 'war-action' at all. This leads me back to something i complained about earlier about the unrealistic reactions of the people around her. I wanted to know so badly how she would react to a world without war, and how the people around her (classmates and such) would react to a 16 year old girl who they all knew had killed countless of people. And this is somehow just not addressed. Sure, a few times its said that people were less sensitive to tragedies because of the terrors of the war and it could be argued that that is why they arent really bothered by it. But i would have loved to read about her interacting with classmates with whom she had been on the same wavelength before the war. I wanted to see the social dynamics of a thoroughly traumatized bitter girl with so much blood on her hands interacting with kids of the same age who had gone through relatively peaceful times because they were caught and worked as servants for example. Its not all bad things though. Even with Marsdens long winded descriptions of events (remember the 5 pages it took him to describe Ellie climbing up the roof of a truck when they were escaping the airport?) i was thoroughly gripped by the story and Marsden managed to make things like courts and guardianship of minors thrilling. I study law at the University and Marsden even managed to loosen me up when it came to adherence to procedural laws, which i can tell you is quite the accomplishment.
I can keep writing forever if i let myself so im going to sum it up now.
It was absolutely great reading about Ellie and her friends again. Im totally caught up in the story again and i cant wait to read the other two parts. However, im not blind to the flaws that do exist in this novel and im well aware my judgement is clouded because im so fully in love with the world so masterfully created by John Marsden.