Arrowhead by Paul Kane
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
What could be better than Robin Hood in a Post-Apocalyptic world wiped out by a mysterious plague?
That premise sounds right up my alley. I knew this was young-adult, so I wasn't expecting deep writing or long rational explanations for events.
The story almost lives up to the premise. I didn't have a problem with that at all.
The thing that drove me batty was that this book vacillated between between childishly simple [not even close to YA] and then extremely graphic in terms of language and violence and sexual content.
Childish:
This apocalypse is a nice quiet ordered one. Lots of people die, lots of the survivors hide out and then things just kind of settle down to a humdrum existence.
Then the badguys move in. They have guns, tanks, fuel. In fact, they have everything they need.
I can deal with simple and the above would have been ok too if the rest of the book had been in that vein. Unfortunately, schizophrenia [or marketing] set in and led to the Graphic'ness.
Graphic:
The foremost incident that stood out to me was when Robinhood at the end
The second thing that bothered me was the inclusion of continued hints at rape to one of the characters by the sheriff and her seduction of the guard to escape.
Third, was the use of the word "fuck" several times.
Now, all of the above I would expect in an adult novel and probably wouldn't make much note of it. What gets me is the interweaving of the two. A 10 year old could read the story and comprehend and enjoy it. But I don't want my[theoretical] 10 year old reading such graphic violence, lewd and suggestive acts or being exposed to such casual "hard" swearing.
In many ways I felt like I was watching one of those beauty pageants that are for 5 year olds. It made me ill to be honest.
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