1. Slow start but it turned exciting before long.  I like Toussaint who is a real person as well because he has the wisdom and courage to rebel.

I love how Toussaint, Dread Wilme and Shorty came together as (sort of) one person.

I also like how it shows what you would probably feel like if you were alone trapped underneath the rubble.

I don't like Napoleon who showed no mercy.  He deserved to die.

8/10.

 

2. Unfortunately the beginning of this book really put me off and I couldn't really get into it. It starts under the rubble of a hospital after the Haitian earthquake.  The main character, a boy called ‘Shorty' is trapped. His life has been full of violence and crime but he has a mission, to find his long lost sister.  I'm afraid I found the violence disturbing and I couldn't finish the novel, but I know that it has had really good reviews from other readers.  It just wasn't my sort of book.

Reviewed by Dharshini

 

3. This book combines several different historical events in which we find the characters struggling & fighting for their lives. Later on in the story we find their stories are linked and that each character has a connection. I like the way that the characters stories are somewhat taken over by the settings and historic events as it brings together non-fiction and fiction and makes the book feel more real and believable.  Personally I think the story began a bit too quickly, with lots of characters, different languages and experiences being introduced in the first few chapters. The language was colloquial, and I don't think this was the best way to start off this particular book as it was so full of different ideas and parallel plots-the reader needed to understand the general idea clearly without all the ‘yeah's' and ‘man's'.  However, as the story developed, I became more riveted to the book and both stories (it mainly talked about two characters and split the chapters into then and now) reached their climaxes with blood-shed, revenge and emotion. One part of the story I think modern day teenagers & adults could relate to. One of the main characters was a boy who lived in Haiti, in amongst rival gangs, voodoo magic and rebel forces, and how he became swept up in the chaos and havoc caused by all the fighting and guns. He joins one of the gangs after his family is attacked and his father killed by the opposing force, and starts to become a man very quickly, killing someone at the age of 12. He is determined to find his twin sister whom he lost when they were attacked. The other character is living in the time of the slave trade, trying desperately to win freedom for his country and his people. They are both stories of determination and loss, and I think that the author was trying to tell the same story in modern day, and in the past. After all, they become the same person at the end. Overall, I think the book depicts the true fear and passion felt by real people who encountered such events, even though the start was too full on and hard to understand at times.

 

4. The book is about a Haitian boy called Shorty who is trapped in the ruins of a hospital when the earth explodes around him in the earthquake of 2010. He is surrounded by dead bodies and is desperately weak as he doesn't have any food or water. Shorty waits in the dark for a rescue, where he discovers that his struggle becomes a part of a two hundred years old history.

I would recommend this book for children ages 11 - 13 and people who like the genres thriller, historical and maybe adventure. I think that bits of this book has genres of historical. I would rate this book a 10 out of 10, as it is very interesting.

Reviewed by Sharukaa