Today’s review of the day comes from Emily of Swarm of Beasts. Emily is, in her own words, a "librarian, a writer, a linguistic auto-didact, and generally a dilettante."
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The Astonishing Adventures of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1
Yesterday, I read a comment to a blog post that said: if Octavian Nothing is a YA novel, then War and Peace is a middle-grade novel.
This has some truth in it.
It is certainly a novel that takes off running and doesn’t really care whether you catch up. It takes it as understood that the reader has the right balance of knowledge and patience; you don’t necessarily need to understand all the science and the history, but you need to be okay with not understanding it. It’s not Pynchon, or anything, but it’s a more difficult book than a lot of the mainstream suspense/thriller bestsellers on the adult shelves.
On the other hand, a book can be a difficult book and still be a YA book. And I think this one has that kind of appeal for very smart teenagers.