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The Ship

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The Ship

By: Antonia Honeywell
Narrated by: Melody Grove
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Summary

Oxford Street burned for three weeks; the Regent's Park camps have been bombed. Lalla, 16, has grown up sheltered from the new reality by her visionary father, Michael Paul. He has promised Lalla and her mother that they will escape. Escape on a ship big enough to save 500 people. Once onboard, as day follows identical day, Lalla's unease grows. Where are they going?

©2015 Antonia Honeywell (P)2015 W F Howes Ltd Coming of Age Dystopian Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction
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Critic reviews

" The Ship is tense, engaging and emotionally charged: I devoured this novel." (Helen Dunmore)
"A beautiful futuristic fable with huge power to haunt and disturb." (M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts)
All stars
Most relevant
Great concept but the moany main character makes it really difficult to enjoy! it felt like the story on board the ship should have been 3 chapters of a larger idea. Although well written, it was very drawn out at points. Well performed but not the exciting plot I had hoped for.

difficult protagonist

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Is there anything you would change about this book?

I enjoyed this book but about half way through I realised that this was a book with a young girl complaining...a lot. This didn't help with the tone of the person who read it. However, it was beautifully written, was a good story and the reader does have a great voice... it was just a bit of a combo and although I understood the message underpinning this story, I did become frustrated with the main character at times and felt quite guilty about it!
I would change the length of it- making it shorted because I felt that the main character tended to make the same point again and again. I would also change the main characters name as it is a bit pathetic and adds to the frustration. Beautifully written however and an original idea.

Would you be willing to try another book from Antonia Honeywell? Why or why not?

Yes as she is a fantastic author and had written this beautifully.

What three words best describe Melody Grove’s voice?

Soft, calm, young

Was The Ship worth the listening time?

Not sure.

Any additional comments?

Both author and reader clearly have amazing talent, I just felt that this book became quite frustrating and there were points where the main character was making the same point over and over again which irritated me. I am very conflicted in this review as I would still recommend this book... maybe not listening to too much at one time!

Beautifully written...but got a little whiny...

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Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It is always time well spent, it makes my daily tedious car journey to and from work bearable at worse, joyous at best. This audible adventure fell somewhere in the middle. Loved the first third, then it became a mid-ocean journey in the mind of the main character that for me was tedious. You don't have to be a literary expert to work out the secrets kept from LaLa (the main character) and the outcome was equally predictable. The Narrator however was brilliant.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Yes. Not entirely sure how so has not to give the game away, but the ending would see LaLa taking (or being enabled to) a different path

Which character – as performed by Melody Grove – was your favourite?

No one really stood out. LaLa was the main character but has a 16 year old with all the complexities of a teenager, set inside a closeted ship, with a suffocating childhood beforehand her storey was more to do with her emotional baggage with the ship being nothing more than a red herring.

Could you see The Ship being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

No. The danger is that it could be set as a mid-ocean soap. The dystopian background would be lost. If I had to compare it to anything similar for TV, I'd say the Stepford Wives.

Any additional comments?

You may love it, if you download I hope you do. I won't revisit. Sorry.

Great start, but the SHIP should have docked

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Would you try another book written by Antonia Honeywell or narrated by Melody Grove?

Won't be trying anything else by the author. The "heroine" was incomprehensibly simple, dense and irritating. The "twists" certainly weren't surprises. An interesting dystopian world, but the book was pointless. There's a lot of brilliant young adult fiction out there; this isn't even good. My teens would be scathing, so won't be suggesting they read this one.

Teen fiction I won't be recommending to my teen

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This is a difficult book to rate, as though it is technically a dystopian novel it never actually quite strikes me as such. Nor exactly is it a disaster novel, perhaps a careful mix of the two.

The story focuses entirely on the first person narrative of the teenage Lalla, set at some indistinct point in the not-to-distant future where owing to some unknown catastrophe the world has collapsed. As London quickly is deteriorating as the falling government attempts to keep control, Lalla is shepherded onto "the ship" which is a seaborne haven for a fortunate few to escape.

This is ultimately a coming of age story, though Lalla never really strikes as being much more than a naive and foolish teenager, obsessed about returning to land whilst never understanding what she has been shielded from her whole life. Many parts of the book are quite predictable, the ending itself I thought was disappointing. Though make no mistake, this has been an enjoyable book and has been quite diverting. The narration by Melody Grove was a pleasure to listen to.

Dystopia at sea

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