Welcome to the Door Stop Novels YA Fest, 2021 edition! It will be all young adult novels for the entire month of June, and I am excited to kick things off with The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold. My first experience with Arnold's work was back in 2015 with Mosquitoland, where a young girl embarks on an ambitious journey to find her mother. In The Electric Kingdom, a different adventure must be taken, as humanity fights for survival in a not-so-distant future.
The Situation: Eighteen year-old Nico and her father live in an old farmhouse, surviving on chili mac 'n cheese, old stories, and memories. The world is a much different place from what it was just after Nico was born, as a deadly breed of flies has wiped out much of the human population. If the swarm does not eat you alive, often lifting their prey high up into the sky as they devour it, then what they leave behind may lead to a different death. The Fly Flu has left the world as a shell of its former self, and Nico fears her father has already contracted it. In another town, Kit and his mother have made a home in a small movie theater, along with his two friends Monty and Lakie. Each has their own separate skill that aids in their collective survival, but the swarms still present an incredible danger as they can show up suddenly, and with little warning. And of course, there is still the flu to fear, as well as just how long this way of life can keep them going.
The Problem: When Nico's father urges her to make an eight-day journey to Manchester (not the one in England), she knows the voyage will be dangerous, if not impossible. Plus, she fears the task he wants her to complete is more myth than reality - nothing more than an old story - the deadly Fly Flu playing a terrible trick on his memory. And when terrible events cause Nico to cross paths with Kit, the two bond almost instantly. Kit may only be 12 years-old, but he has spent his short life reading as much as he could from the library of the middle school close to the movie theater. This has given him a wide range of knowledge of various subjects. And life events have allowed him to have the kind of courage that even most adults lack. Their motley crew of travelers decide to stick together, at least for a little while, and both Nico and Kit have the strangest feeling that this has all happened before.
Genre, Themes, History: This is a young adult science fiction novel set mostly in the year 2043. About 18 years before, an experiment gone wrong unleashes a deadly breed of flies that slowly ravages humanity across the globe. The children that the reader follow in the book have no memory of what the world was like before, with small (and sometimes big) revelations of how life used to be coming through Kit's thoughts (there used to be a whole room in each house that was devoted to doing laundry; their used to be people whose main job it was to pick up trash). Nico and Kit share most of the narration, but there is also the mysterious Deliverer, a helmeted figure who delivers food to the farmhouse where Nico and her father stayed. This Deliverer seems to know about major events before they happen, and continually references journal-like books with extensive notes on what has happened, what needs to happen, and what cannot be stopped from happening. The overall story reads like a puzzle that is slowly being put together, and the final picture is not visible until the very last page.
My Verdict: Post-apocalyptic novels can be tough. It can be difficult to reconcile the world we know with an author's representation of how the world can end up. And the author has the task of bringing their vision to life and making it plausible, as well as interesting. Arnold is smart to look into a future that is far enough away that readers can believe that a drastic change could happen, but close enough that we do not feel completely disconnected from the characters and their daily existence. With Arnold's descriptions, I could fully appreciate the empty town that Kit grew up in, with his bedroom in an old projection room of a small movie theater. And the journey the kids take through the New England area, passing hollowed out towns and abandoned properties, is filled with both anticipation and wonder, even though I am fully familiar with the things they have only heard stories about. There is so much going on here, and somehow, he makes it work.
Favorite Moment: Of course, due to the story taking place in a world where a swarm of flies can swoop down at any minute and kill someone, there are some lives lost throughout the journey. Without giving too much away, my favorite moment is when one of the characters makes a sudden reappearance, and the timing could not be more perfect.
Favorite Character: Nico is the perfect balance between prepared, grounded, and resolved.
Recommended Reading: My favorite of Arnold's book is still probably Mosquitoland, though The Electric Kingdom may now be a close second.
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