![]() Mika wouldn't "let them wash her bedding because it smelled of her. Mika refuses to believe that Ellie is not alive, much to the distress of their parents. Ellie has been gone for over a year and is presumed dead. The reader learns and discovers along with the main character, who turns out not to be Ellie, the girl who knew the secret, but her twin brother, Mika. However, the secret that Ellie knows is not revealed until almost the end of The Roar. Chapter One is titled, "The Girl Who Knew the Secret," and starts with a wild ride in a highjacked Pod Fighter that is being piloted by Ellie and her companion, Puck, a capuchin monkey. In fact, I found the plot The Roar impossible to predict or second guess from beginning to end. "All that glitters is not gold / Often you have heard that told./ Many a man his life hath sold/ But my outside to behold./ Gilded tombs do worms enfold." This quote is so perfectly suited to the plot of The Roar but you won't realize why until almost the end of the book. The Roar begins with a quote from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, which all adults and even some young readers should be familiar with, if only partially. One character "held her breath and her heart began to beat in sore punches." Another could "smell danger as if it were rotting around the back of the hut." And, a passage that had me re-reading it comes almost at the end of the book. There were so many moments in The Roar, which I read and listened to (the audio is narrated by Jane Collingwood and is SUPERB! She is heir to the throne of Jim Dale, without a doubt) that caused me to slow down and really listen, the images lingering long after. However, when a book is extremely well written, the poetry of the text can grab you and compel you slow down and drink in the imagery. But, reading for the thrill also means that, when hooked, I read mostly for plot and sometimes miss the poetry of the writing, the beauty of the words, phrases and images. I also crave the thrill that comes when you fall in love a little with the characters in a book, whether it is maternal, paternal, romantic or platonic. I am always looking for the thrill that comes when a book hooks you and you can't put if down, then the connection that is made when you can discuss it with another reader. The difference between me and a professional book reviewer is that I still read for fun and for the joy of sharing a good book with another reader. For those of you who have read them, you will marvel that this incredible book is by a fist time author. ![]() For those of you who have never read either of these trilogies, you will run to them when you finish The Roar. Clayton's Ellie and Mika are definitely cut from the same cloth as Pullman's main characters (and equally manipulated and abused by power hungry adults), Lyra and Will, two of the strongest, most endearing and fully realized child characters I have read in a children's book. The Roar also shares similarities with Philip Pullman's superb trilogy, His Dark Materials, that begins with The Golden Compass. The Roar shares similar plot threads and the dystopian societies created by Lowry and Clayton are equally disturbing, but in very different ways. ![]() When it comes to dystopian children's literature, the Newbery Award winning book The Giver by Lois Lowry, first in a trilogy, is both jarring and uplifting, ending with a somewhat ambiguous future for the main character. I sometimes view books in the same way I think of my three (very different) children - miraculously unique individuals who just happen to share DNA and thus are similar (and, I realize, therefore not exactly unique.) The Roar is an inimitable, miraculous book that deserves every minute of attention it receives, but it does share some noble DNA that bears mentioning. ![]() As a reviewer, I am occasionally reluctant to compare or link books. I think one of the reasons I am a good bookseller is because it's all about similarities and connections when I am helping a customer find a book.
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