Extraordinary Means - Robyn Schneider

Yet again Nic attempts to comment upon a genre that she doesn't normally read, thus, writes and less than fantastic and informed review. I guess I've read more Young Adult books than I have Graphic Novels (see my last review), if only because I once was a Young Adult. Except when I was a 'Young Adult' it was called being a teenager. Teenage literature has changed, or maybe as a teenager I wasn't reading the right stuff. This book certainly proves that the writing has got better. I was a series reader. Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High were two that I couldn't resist, along with anything by Judy Blume. I still couldn't possibly meet a man called Ralph without laughing (actually, as I think a whole generation of girls read 'Forever', this generation will not be naming babies this, which might explain why you never meet a man under the age of 40 with this name). Anyway, I digress.

Extraordinary Means is compelling and well written but perhaps not exactly what I was hoping to get out of the story. It's set in a world where there is a strain of TB that is not curable by antibiotics, so young people are sent to a hybrid of a summer camp, hospital and school to recuperate and keep them away from the non-infected. One thing that hasn't change regarding young adult literature is the setting without parents.  So many books put young people in situations where they are away from most adults and  therefore have to cope alone.  Lane, a teenager with TB is new to the hospital but soon meets someone from his past.

It's an interesting idea and I could have seen the story developing along more suspenseful lines and I wish that it had. I had it in my head there was some kind of conspiracy but actually, this wasn't the case at all and it developed into a more conventional romance. I have no doubt this will be highly appealing to teenagers, the main audience for this book. The sneaking out and sneaking into rooms as well as the 'group of outsiders' idea will hook into a teenagers sense of (danger - but not too much).  Most teenagers also love a bit of tragedy so they ever present spectre of dying from TB will keep them reading. 

I found the ending a bit disappointing and predictable. I find that you either like a predictable ending that you're expecting (very satisfying) or you don't, and I don't. Then again, I'm an adult. This isn't a YA book that I think many adults would enjoy reading massively, although we all have an inner teenager. It lacks a little depth plot wise, but perhaps this doesn't reflect this book particularly but this genre. As I say, I haven't read YA for a while. 

What impressed me was that now, as some books started to when I was a teenager, writers don't patronise young adults. There is some swearing in this book and suggestions of sex, reflecting that not all teenagers live chaste lives where they talk nicely.  I think what I need to do now is get some of my old teenage books again and revisit them. I don't think the themes and writing were any worse or better, but I do think that Young Adult literature has 'grown up' since then.