This is a difficult novel to review, because it has interesting and realistic characters, imaginative setting, plenty of well-presented action and believable conflict with excellent suspense. And one basic flaw that detracts from our enjoyment of it all.
Mass Exodus is Young Adult Dystopian Science Fiction. It is the story of Jayniss, a teenager who lives in a post-apocalyptic world where monsters rule the jungle and humans live in small enclaves, clinging to the remnants of old-world society. And not doing too well.
She is jolted out of her complacent life by the loss of her father, who did not return from a hunting trip. In typical teenage fashion, she refuses to believe that he is dead. Her rebellion leads her to question the ability of her society to make any changes in order to survive. Powerful stuff. It is illogical but understandable that she insists on going into the jungle to look for him. She’s a grieving teenager, after all.
Disaster throws her onto her own resources, and away she goes with her best friend (who wants to be her boyfriend) her father’s rifle and ten bullets. This journey of discovery leads her to adventure and enlightenment, as Hero’s Journeys always do.
All this sounds like a good, solid YA Fantasy. However, the author has failed to consider one of the main joys of reading Science Fiction: the viability of the science. As we read, Sci-Fi fans are always watching the new tech, wanting to be impressed by the discernment of the author’s predictions.
And Mr. von Halle disappoints us in the first page, where he states that this society is thousands of years in the future. We read on and discover a tattered version of American 21st Century society, with rusty old cars, hunting rifles and a regular high school. There are two completely different societies a day’s travel away, but in that length of time, they have never crossed paths. And there are other, less important instances of far-fetched science that elicit the “Huh?” reaction and throw us out of our involvement with the characters.
This leads to a further difficulty, because, while this lack of veracity might not bother a ten-year-old, the main character’s rough language boosts the reading level up into the PG13 level, a point where readers are more critical. Remember, parents and librarians are a major market for YA literature.
If the author would go through and change the “hundred million” to “five hundred,” it would make the story easier to connect to. I’d clean up the gratuitous rough language as well. Why turn away potential readers for an otherwise good book?
Four Stars.