Downsiders

Talon Angler breaks all the rules when he ventures Topside to obtain the medicine needed to save his sister's life. But he is soon discovered by Lindsay Matthias, a girl who finds him and his world as captivating as he finds her. Can Lindsay help Talon when The Great Shaft Disaster changes the Downside forever?

Shusterman's Everlost was one of the books that helped me to decide to continue reading YA fiction. So for my category this year it was a no-brainer for me to pick another Shusterman book. Like Everlost, Downsiders takes place in New York. Here we have the boy from the tunnels meeting the girl from the city. Sort of a YA Beauty and the Beast, for those of you my age who remember the television show. And when Lindsay goes Downside show more with Talon, you cannot help but think of Alice in that rabbit hole, a fact which Shusterman acknowledges by calling it as such. That's just the kind of tale it is. Shusterman has done a masterful job at bringing the Downside to life. It is so thoughtfully and beautifully detailed. At one point he writes "A world, regardless of which one it happens to be, is rather ordinary to the souls who inhabit it... It is human nature to take the most magical of worlds for granted, turning each one into a blank canvas upon which to paint the lives of those who would live there. Only an outsider can see a world's wonders for what they really are." And that is so true. That's why most protagonists are outsiders. So the author can build the world they're in and make you care about it. And I did care about the Downside. So when the Disaster came I was curious to see how Talon and Lindsay would handle it. Because like most YA fiction, I knew there was some growing-up to do. Shusterman didn't let me down, so I'll be reading more from him. show less

Downsiders speculates about a scenario that, though fantasy, seems that it could be altogether possible. Shusterman's New York City is populated by "Topsiders," the people you and I can see if we wander the streets of the city. However, it also encompasses a whole civilization of Downsiders, a community of people who dwell in tunnels and cast-off remnants of the top side that exist deep below the surface untouched by the topside for no less than 10 years. Topsiders live in blissful ignorance of the entire world below them, while Downsiders, for the most part, live in fear of the Topside, drawing near to it only to gather necessities and catch "fallers," those whose hope for a life worth living in the Topside has run out. The two show more civilizations exist happily apart and unknown to each other until the chance meeting of Talon, a Downsider, and Lindsay, a Topsider occurs with unfortunate consequences for both.

Downsiders' two main characters are believable. Both are feeling kind of disengaged from their own worlds opening the way for their encounter. Talon's overwhelming curiosity about the Topside combined with his desperation to find a cure for his little sister's illness drives him to seek medicine in Lindsay's under-renovation home. Lindsay, having just moved to New York to live with her father and step-brother who are virtually unknown to her, has no friends and a suspicion about the city that makes her all too eager to embrace Talon and his world when they have a run in. Unfortunately, the characterization stops with them. The remainder of the people populating Shusterman's story are a variety of stock characters with predictable traits and predictable outcomes to their situations like Lindsay's oh-so-typical stepfather who's so involved in his work he barely notices her and her full of himself scumbag of a stepbrother. You've seen these characters a hundred times, and little is done to set them apart from the rest of their ilk.

Luckily, Downsiders is not intended to be a character driven novel. Shusterman's alternate New York is vividly imagined, complete with its own practices like wearing watches around the ankle because "time is of low importance" as well as a variety of invented directional terms, and a few unexpected ways of surviving and making a living. In Shusterman's hands, this home for the city's once unwanted and forgotten is inventive and oddly realistic. Downsiders is a rollicking, heartfelt adventure about two worlds colliding and a coming of age story about two characters finding themselves in the context of their own worlds and beyond. show less

I have had this book on my shelf to read for years. I really enjoyed Shusterman’s Skinjacker trilogy and had picked up some of his older books to read. This was an okay read, it reminded a bit of a young adult version of Gaiman’s Neverwhere...but not as magical.

Talon lives under the streets of New York’s city in a secret community called Downsiders. Lindsey is forced to move to New York City to live with her dad, who is working on a project to create a new aqueduct for the city. Lindsey is lonely and incredibly curious when she spies a boy, Talon, down in the sewers. Talon and Lindsey meet and Talon breaks the greatest rule of Downsider society...he reveals their existence to Lindsey. Now Talon faces a sentence of death but as show more Lindsey’s dad breeches part of the Downsiders territory bigger problems face New York City.

This book was well written and engaging. It’s a pretty straight-forward and simple story. I enjoy the idea of a secret society under the streets of New York City, as I mentioned is reminded a bit of a simpler, less magical, young adult version of Gaiman’s Neverwhere.

Talon and Lindsey are both well done characters. They are each driven by fairly simple motives. Talon is eternally curious and wants to be part of the world above. Lindsey is lonely and looking for a mystery to solve. They are fairly simple but engaging characters and younger readers should be able to easily relate to them.

I loved the mystery behind why and when the society of Downsiders was formed, this was probably the most interesting part of the book. There are some good lessons in here about friendship and community. I do think the idea of secret societies forming underneath cities and the surface of the Earth in general has been a bit overdone, so it’s not all that creative...still Shusterman does a good job with this.

Overall a good book. It’s a pretty simple story with simple yet engaging characters. I enjoyed the mystery of how Downside came into existence and loved the idea of a city underneath New York City. The whole book was a bit too simplistic for me to absolutely love, but I think younger readers will find the ideas here intriguing and enjoy it even more than I did. show less

Lindsay moves into a New York brownstone with her engineer father and rotten stepbrother Todd after her mother takes off. By accident, Lindsay discovers Talon, a teenage boy who lives in a secret underground city called the Downside. Lindsay's father's massive construction project threatens to reveal the existence of the Downside, and Lindsay and Talon have to try to save the Downside. This is a fun, urban legend kind of story (yes, the alligators in the sewers story shows up along with a lot of other urban legends), but its strength is showing how the culture we grow up in often decides for us how we see others who are different ... and how valuable it is to be able to see beyond that.

Fantasy and science fiction stories are full of examples of protagonists who discover that they are secretly special - whether it be a royal background, magical powers, or chosen by providence. But what do you do when you find out that your background is less noble than you thought?

The story also raises many questions about interactions between different cultures. What happens when two cultures collide? Should cultures stay distinct or blend together? How does one react to learning unpleasant truths about one’s family/cultural background? What makes us react to a certain culture as “exotic” or “mundane”? How does one react when one’s worldview is forcibly changed? These questions are all applicable to students and patrons show more in today's world. show less

Themes: Hidden worlds, family, social order, loyalty
Setting: Topside and Downside New York City

Talon is a Downsider; Lindsay is a Topsider. The two are sworn enemies. Then Talon's best friend kills her cousin and the two can never be together. There's singing and dancing and dueling and wait - maybe I'm a little mixed up. So I guess it's kind of like Romeo and Juliet, but not as much as I expected from the beginning. One reviewer compared it to The Outsiders, which is thankfully all wrong, because I would NOT have finished it in that case. Let's see if I can explain it better.

The Downsiders live in New York. Except that they live UNDER New York. They have lived there for a long, long time. So long that they have built up some strange show more ideas about life Topside. They have adapted quite well to life below. It's hard to say for sure how many of them there are, but maybe about 5,000 or so. They are content with their separate existence, but there are a few signs that their society is struggling. Then a young man named Talon takes a little too much interest in the world Topside and the two worlds start to collide.

There have been places where the worlds sort of meet, like the subway. The Downsiders aren't completely ignorant of the world above. But the Topsiders have completely forgotten about the world below, so when Lindsay catches a glimpse of a pair of eyes watching her from between the walls, she can't understand where he came from. Then she catches him in her bedroom on New Year's Eve, so naturally she sprays him with mace. Then she takes pity on him when she hears about his sister who is terribly sick. He just wanted some medicine for her.

Right here I thought I knew where the story was going, but I was wrong. It was both better and not as good as I expected. It was more creative and imaginative than I expected. There were cool little details, like what REALLY lives in the sewers, how they the whole society works, their system of commerce. But some of it was hard to picture. At book club once we were discussing a book and someone pointed out that I was not a visual reader. I admitted that I'm not, but in this book, even I had trouble picturing how things would look. How exactly did that whole thing with Talon watching Lindsay between the walls work? I never could figure that out. There's a part at the end that totally didn't make sense to me, and it kind of messed up the ending for me. 3.5 stars show less

This book ignited my love of subways, things hidden below, and underground communities (although my favorite book in this sub-genre (ha) is Gaiman's Neverwhere). I wish Shusterman included some references about Beach at the end; the connection between the story and reality is what most fascinated me the first time I read Downsiders. (Yay for the upcoming sequel!)