Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Imagine you and a group of friends gone deep into the wilderness one weekend for a camping trip. Imagine yourself encountering nature at a level never experienced before, making smores around the campfire while telling stories, and watch the stars and planes flying across the night sky. Imagine yourself returning to an empty home–no note, no power, no dial tone. And your dog is dead in the front yard. But this is not only your home–all your friends’ homes are the same. In fact, the entire population of your town seems to have mysteriously disappeared while you were gone. Soon, in your search for everyone, you find your town gathered behind barbed fences, with foreign soldiers guarding the perimeter. You start freaking out. “These things don’t just happen, not here, not in this country!”
This is the situation Ellie and friends find themselves in following a camping trip in the Australian outback. I ended up picking up Tomorrow, When The War Began after watching the movie with Heather, Krystal, Kylie, and Terri over Winter break. I thought the concept was actually really interesting, with a real interesting mix of different characters providing an interesting insight into human psychology. In fact, it was so interesting, I ended up watching that movie at least once per day for a full week. (Now I just need a region free DVD player so that I can watch it on residence… …damn these non-North American DVDs!) Anyhow, upon school beginning again, I quickly snagged up the entire series from the library, and started working away on them.
The first book lacked much of the suspense it should have had, seeing as the movie was only of the first book. However, it did have me in several instances shouting in my head “I thought XXX was supposed to say that line!” There are some significant differences in how the characters are represented, though those differences aren’t necessarily bad.
The story is told as a record written by Ellie looking back at what has recently happened to them. I liked the way it was written overall, as the style seemed to be pretty basic (it was supposed to be written by someone in their late teens). I don’t think the book was anything extraordinary, but I did like it. I’m looking forward to finishing the series 
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Oh, I didn’t know it has a movie now! Hmm, I wonder if I should watch it or if that will forever change my impressions of the book…
P.S. What code do you use to get your posts to go “[...]” on the Blog Squad page so the whole post doesn’t show up?
Yep! Since you’ve read the book, you’ll probs notice a bunch of things are different (very different). But I still liked the movie.
In your control panel:
Settings >> Reading >> For each article in a feed, show: Summary
Oh, drat, I was hoping there was a way so I could do it for only a few select posts. Thanks anyway!
[...] is the second book in the Tomorrow series, following Tomorrow, When the War Began, by John Marsden. It continues the story of Ellie and her friends as they try to survive an [...]