Taylor Five

Taylor Five is the story of Tay Walker, a teenager born and raised on a wildlife Refuge in the jungles of Borneo. Tay is also a clone, a fact which has had all sorts of ramifications for her and her relationship with friends and family, but she’s just beginning to cope when her home is raided by rebels and she is forced to flee through the jungle to the coast. Halam pulls no punches: in one terrible swoop, Tay loses her family, her friends, her home, all the things we use to define ourselves, all the things whose relationship with Tay were in flux because of her identity as a clone. Stripped of these things, alone but for the support of the Refuge’s mascot, an orang utan called Uncle, Tay’s struggle to survive is not only a show more physical one but a mental one as she tries to keep her fraying sense of self together.

This was almost as good as Dr Franklin’s Island, except the latter had the element of surprise which is what pushes it ahead by a beak. Oddly enough, for me at least, the book doesn’t really kick off properly until Tay reaches safety, about halfway through, meets her clone-sister and tries to rescue Uncle from being sent to a zoo. In fact, it’s fair to say that Tay goes a bit mad at this point and the reader is carried along on a wave of pure sympathy as we urge her to get through this and find some sort of peace of mind.

Taylor Five has the same sort of concerns Dr Franklin’s Island did, about scientific endeavour and the very human consequences thereof. Another unputdownable book.

Well, I’ll be looking out for more Ann Halam books. In fact, I think her new one, Siberia, is in one of the shops in town and I do believe I’ll be investing in that on Friday. show less

This young adult novel is set in the fictional state of Kandar in Borneo. Taylor, her brother and her scientist parents live at a wildlife refuge for orangutans. Taylor is also one of five cloned humans in the world, she a clone of a family friend, a brilliant scientist who works for the same parent company as her parents. Up until recently Taylor has taken this information fairly well, but now she's plagued with doubts and self-loathing. When rebels in the area's civil war attack the refuge, Taylor and brother must flee into the jungle and fend for themselves - and they are accompanied by an older orangutan, the refuge's mascot named 'uncle'. Though action-packed this novel still manages to probe questions of self-identity and teach show more some environmental lessons (not to mention the science behind invitro fertilization and cloning. I would've loved a book like this when I was twelve! show less