YA Weekend: The Living by Matt de la Peña

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction

Series: Book 1 of The Living

Publisher: Delacorte for Young Readers (November 12, 2013)

Author Information: Website

Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book first caught my attention because I noticed a blurb likening it to a Young Adult version of LOST – which was actually a show I really enjoyed before it turned all WTFery bizarre. The result however, was not quite what I expected. I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed, though; The Living wasn’t a bad book, just different.

I’m also not surprised to see that opinions are all over the place for this one. It is a book made up of several different sections that feel completely dissimilar from each other in terms atmosphere, setting, pacing. It is part disaster story and survivor narrative, but also with some hints of apocalyptic fiction and mystery. Try and imagine the movie 2012 meets Castaway, then maybe throw in a bit of 28 Days Later.

We start the story on a luxury cruise ship, which I thought was a rather unique and exciting setting. The international crew and passengers make for a very diverse cast, with characters hailing from all over the world. The protagonist himself, Shy, is a Mexican-American teenager whose home town is near the border, an area ravaged by a new illness coined Romero disease. Ever since the disease claimed his grandmother, Shy has been working for the cruise line in order to earn money to support his family.

Shy employed on board a ship and near Hawaii when “The Big One” hits, a megathrust earthquake that completely destroys the west coast of North America. The resulting tsunami sinks the ship, and while most perish, Shy manages to survive.

One more movie reference and I swear I’ll be done, but I just wanted to point out that The Living ruined cruising for me by traumatizing me the same way Final Destination did with air travel. The scenes leading up to, during, and after the sinking were gripping and terrifying. Which was probably why it felt so incongruous when this section was followed up with a part featuring days of drifting aimlessly on the open water as Shy is marooned on a lifeboat. This section had its moments too, but it had nowhere near the heart-pounding force or intensity.

I was also slightly disappointed when I got to the final few pages and found a wide-open ending, and what was a very obvious lead-in to a series. I’d hoped that this would be a stand alone, though I’d had my doubts even before I started when I saw the slimness of the volume. As I got closer and closer to the last page I already suspected the author wasn’t going to be able to wrap everything up.

In fact, as a first book to a planned series, The Living actually had the feel of very long introduction. But for all that, I still can’t deny it has me hooked — Matt de la Peña did a splendid job setting up an intriguing story and a lot of interesting relationships between the characters. I’ll most likely pick up the sequel when it releases.