I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I went into it with fairly low expectations despite the fact that I loved Robert Muchamore's CHERUB books. Arctic Zoo is both emotionally poignant and action & adventure packed - something which is hard to do well. Prepare for a rollercoaster of emotions.

I would have liked the book to explore a little more of their time on the mental health ward, as these parts felt a little lacking. ( )

Two Worlds Collide

Georgia is an English teenager, just trying to survive school and get through the drone flying competitions she is no longer very interested in. When tragedy hits her family, she is force to re-evaluate her life and ambitions, finding a new interest in the political activism group her sister's boyfriend is a part of. When a careless moment is caught on camera, Georgia unexpectedly becomes the face of a nationwide protest she couldn't really care less about. How far is she willing to go to take her life back?

Julius is the nephew of the state governor in Ondo, Nigeria, and the son of a famous mega-church founder. While he lives in a marble mansion surrounded by body guards, the people around him are living on less than a dollar a day, and feeding into the ever present corruption around them just to stay alive. Fights are a daily occurrence, and laws are made to be broken. When Julius is forced to confront a side of himself he has kept hidden, everything begins to stack against him and his freedom to choose.

The two characters are about as different as two people can be, aside from their age group. Julius and Georgia are connected however, by their human similarities - pain, a desire for freedom, a growing understanding of the world's corruption and the need for people to stand up for what is right, no matter the personal cost.

This book came into my hands at a good time; the week that Extinction Rebellion, a worldwide climate change protest group, took to the city centre where I live and spent a week shaking things up. I found myself confronted with the questions that Georgia never seems to worry about in this book. If you hold a strong belief in something, is it wrong not to make a stand? If you are ready to protest for the good of your country and mankind, how far is too far? Perhaps it's because of her age, but Georgia never seems to consider why she may join in with something, or what the consequences may be. Her story, however, helped me to evaluate those questions nonetheless.
Fascinatingly, Julius's story raises those questions even more seriously. The world he lives in is full of serious corruption and constant issues. In his position, it seems obvious to the reader that he should make a stand and do something – but he doesn't have the same cushion as Georgia, or the same limelight. In his city, making a stand may well mean his life, and the lives of those he loves. The danger is so real and ready that should someone in his position choose to speak out in protest, he may die before anyone even knew that he was trying to help. This raises so many interesting questions about why we must speak out – is it to be heard, or to vindicate ourselves? Is it better to do nothing and be safe, or to act and lose our lives?


A very different read for a YA book, I would recommend it to young people looking for a meatier modern read. The two distinct stories are both wildly different and interesting, capturing different parts of the imagination. I will admit that this book didn't have the flow I like, so it took some real dedication to get into. The story is genuinely interesting, so there were certainly parts that had me flipping pages and forgetting to eat lunch, but overall it isn't one I flew through. I love the character study aspect of this book, and even when the situations didn't interest me all that much, Georgia and Julius still did. ( )