Best of all Worlds

This author has always written well, but here he takes a definite step forward. Never one to separate parent and child characters when an adventure beckons, this story sees 16-year-old Xavier, his younger half-brother Noah plus father and newish stepmother all transplanted to a nice farmhouse in a countryside they know nothing about. Escape is impossible since they are surrounded by an invisible but impenetrable wall. The only thing left to do is start farming in order to survive, tending the goats and chickens already there as if waiting for them. Working the fields, slowly becoming self-sufficient, Xavier and family finally settle down into a steady and at times even enjoyable routine.

Yet Xavier’s dearest unfulfilled wish still remains for friends his own age and particularly a first girlfriend. Enter on time beautiful 17-year-old Mackenzie, who belongs to the only other more recently transplanted family. But problems arise when her ex-prison guard father turns out to be a conspiracy theorist with a violent past. He also possesses guns and bullets, and is determined to escape at any cost. Xavier, caught between teenage love and loyalty to his parents, now has a tricky path to tread. Whoever or whatever placed the two families together, the intention is soon made clear that no one is expected or even permitted to leave. Which way will Xavier go?

All this is compelling enough, but Oppel constantly broadens the main argument between the two families and their different expectations. Rumours of the steadily disintegrating world they have been taken from make these discussions and the tensions they give rise to all the more urgent. No easy answers arrive by the end, but such would be out of place in a story going for something much more than easy entertainment. Instead, this is by any measure an important story, provocative to the end and highly recommended.