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elseWhere
Will Shetterly Harcourt Brace & Company, 2004 |
Ron Starbuck is
a teenager searching for answers to questions of his past. He is on his way to
the one place where people who feel they don’t fit in society can run to. This
place is known as Bordertown, a place in between the real world and the elf
world of Faerie. In Bordertown, he is hoping to find the answer to his question
of the past, and maybe even find his place in this world. Along the way, he will
find friendship with a half-elf named Mooner and his clan of misfits. Throughout
this journey, Ron goes through a period of self discovery, in which he finally
finds a place of contentment.
The book elseWHERE, by Will Shetterly, though being a well written book
grammatically, lacked a steady plot line. This book would begin a sub-plot
inside the main plot, but jump to another sub-plot before the first was
finished. This was a large problem because the reader is left with loose ends
and those ends are never tied together. Another problem was that the plot picked
up with the main character in his teenage years and the rest of the plot played
out from there. What occurred was that the gray area of his past was never
filled in. The reader is therefore left without a direct connection to the main
character Ron. Finally, the author of this book tried too hard to tie it into
modern society, and the transition didn’t go smoothly. This made it seem as
though the modern society part was being forced upon the reader. If I had to
recommend this book to a certain age group to read, I wouldn’t recommend it to
anyone, unless they are looking to read a book that turns out to make little to
no sense.
Bryant Oslin, 11th grade, Boardman High School