Exodus (original 2002; edition 2002)

In less than a hundred years, all the damage we've done to the Earth will catch up to us. All the trees we've chopped down will contribute to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, speeding the greenhouse effect and melting the polar ice caps. The planet is drowning.

This is the bleak reality of Mara's island community: the sea is rising, and the people on Wing are running out of high ground. Mara has been studying, though, digging through the Weave on her outdated computer, and has found evidence of a new world built high above the ocean. If her people are to survive, they need to move there. But even after the perilous journey is over, they still can't make it past the wall.

This novel was more engrossing than I was prepared to give it credit for--the plot moves slowly, but then you look up and realize it's been an hour and 70 pages have flown by. Some elements are telegraphed right from the beginning (at least for anyone who's ever read a book)--will Mara find a way in?--but even the predictable plot points are ... well, not surprising, but somehow unexpected? They don't feel as inevitable as you'd expect. Despite being in the "greatness thrust upon her" category, Mara is a strong leader with a good heart. I can say roughly the same for the novel. ( )

Distopian fantasy taking place post climate change. The story is so-so, the future worlds poorly thought through. ( )

Captivating world building but lacking in credible plot ( )

School Library Journal
Gr 9 Up- In this epic tale of global warming and environmental disaster set at the dawn of the next century, 15-year-old Mara has lived with the realization that the world is drowning. Growing up on Wing, she has watched her North Atlantic island become smaller each year, and people have long ago abandoned technology in their struggles to subsist. After a particularly bad ocean surge, another part of the village is lost. This spurs Mara to convince the villagers that they will have a chance at a new life in the Sky Cities, which she has located on the now-defunct version of the Internet. After a grueling journey, the refugees find themselves locked out of the city by a giant wall. As sickness and disease claim some of her people, Mara decides to find a way into the city to save them. Through the netherworld (under the city), the teen has encounters with the ratbashers (urchins) and the Treenesters. The Treenesters think that Mara is The Face in the Stone that will save them. Ecologically conscious teens will embrace this girl who is destined to save humanity

So I literally started this last night and stayed up late to finish it! Exodus is probably a book that I wouldn't have picked up usually, because I'm not hugely into fantasy. I'm glad I read it because even though I'm not a huge fan because the novel covered so many other genres, including history, technology, futurology (that's a word..right?) and something very close to my heart (does that sound cheesy?), poetry.

It's the year 2100. Our protagonist is Mara Bell and she lives on the island of Wing, which is gradually drowning because of the floods. After meeting a strange cyber 'fox' in her Cyberwiz (which is like a sort of computer/virtual world-thingy) Mara convinces everyone to move to another island, the New World, because it's clear that it's not long until the whole of Wing is flooded and the inhabitants wiped out. But once they get there, it turns out that there's too many people there already and Mara must suffer watching her neighbours slowly die out of hunger, and then there's the problem that she was separated from her parents, and her little brother.

She's decided she needs to do something, and fast, because she can't sit and be witness to the death of her best friend. And so Mara sets of on an adventure to get help. On her way, she meets with a group of people called the 'Treenesters' and is introduced to a prophecy involving none other than herself..

The start was quite slow for me, and I have to admit that before I actually sat down properly to read it yesterday, I'd read the first page on several occasions and could not get into it. Since I got the book about a month ago, I was pretty excited to read it because it sounded different from anything I'd read before and I'd heard that it was something really special. But about one hundred pages in..I was wondering if this was the same book everybody was talking about.

However, I had to continue reading, because I was determined to find the best in Exodus. Come the second half of the book, things started to get a little exciting..it was like somebody had waved a magic wand, because there was this.. spark in the atmosphere and I found I couldn't take my eyes away from the page.

I have to give credit to Bertagna where credit is due, because she presents us with some of the most extraordinary settings and descriptions, even though some of it it at the beginning might have been what put me off. Her depiction of the world that is struggling to survive in such extreme conditions is fascinating, it made me think about what could quite possibly be us in a number of years, you never actually know.

Mara is confident and clever, but she doesn't notice these qualities in herself, instead believing that she is a bit self-centred because it was her actions that caused some of the horrible events to occur in the book. There was a lot hanging on her shoulders, but it it took was her to have faith in herself and her actions to relieve that tension; and I'm happy to say that Mara became stronger throughout the course of the book and it really showed. The characters were all very well-developed, and extremely likeable, especially Gorbal! He was a funny one! And Fox..hmm..I would have liked to get to know him a little better though, since Mara and him were in love with each other.

Exodus is a brilliant self-discovery story; imaginative and thought-provoking, a truly riveting read. Looking forward to reading Zenith!