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Year of the Horse Reviewed By Lavanya Karthik Of Bookpleasures.com
- By Lavanya Karthik
- Published January 3, 2010
- Childrens & Young Adults
Lavanya Karthik
Reviewer
Lavanya Karthik: Lavanya is from Mumbai, India and is a licensed
architect and consultant in environmental management. She lives in
Mumbai with her husband and six-year old daughter. She loves reading
and enjoys a diverse range of authors across genres.
Author: Justin
Allen
Overlook Press
ISBN-13: 978-1-59020-273-9
Click Here To Purchase Year of the Horse: A Novel
Year of the Horse takes some
very familiar threads in young adult fiction –a young
protagonist with a destiny he must fulfill, a quest for hidden
treasure, a dangerous landscape peppered with formidable foes and
unlikely allies- to weave an engrossing coming of age tale
replete with both wisdom and edge-of-the-seat moments.
In a
foreword to this rollicking tale, author Allen gleefully alerts his
young readers to the unpleasantness that lies ahead, not wanting to
“.. begrudge (them).. the opportunity to engage the sometimes
shocking realities of history”. Fair warning indeed, for the
roller coaster ride this book offers its readers, young and old
alike, across the untamed and dangerous landscape of North America
in the years following the Civil War. The book spares no punches in
its gritty, often brutal, account of one young Chinese American boy’s
experiences on a hunt for treasure, guarded by forces more formidable
than anything he could imagine. Allen deftly weaves folklore and
fantasy into this adventure, that also goes on to make a
powerful statement about what it means to be American (or, indeed, a
member of any community) regardless of one’s color or creed.
For
fourteen year old Chinese American Tzu-lu (or Lu, as he is soon
rechristened) it’s just another day, working at his homework in his
grandfather’s shop in the little town of St Frances. But a few
hours later, a strange visitor leads him away on an even more
mysterious voyage that he feels ill-prepared for. This
visitor is Jack Straw, a famed gunslinger, who quickly
becomes Dumbledore to Lu’s timid Harry, Gandalf to his reluctant
Frodo – the wise teacher and father figure who grooms Lu for the
task he is destined for. They are also joined by a ragtag group
of traveling companions with whom he must struggle to survive not
just hostile Indians and murderous Mormon settlers, but also the
unrelenting harshness of the continent they must cross on
horseback.
The book scores on pace, and its
evocative descriptions of the terrain the group journeys through.
Also the increasingly grim circumstances the group must confront - a
horse literally dissolves in a pool of acid ; an amorous Mormon
preacher attacks them in a bid to abduct their lone female
comrade; and death, when it finally catches up with them, takes its
toll on the weary travellers. Racism is never far
away either ; Lu and his friends are regularly taunted ,
their identity and ‘Americaness’ questioned . Allen tempers
the harsh reality of these scenes with enough humor and
suspense to keep the reader hooked.
This is a book full of
finely etched characters, right from the protagonist and his
companions to the people they meet along the way. Yet , some
things struck me as unconvincing . Lu and his companions seem
strangely compatible, despite their cultural and political
differences. The outcome of the book hinges rather conveniently on a
gift to Lu from one of the several mysterious strangers he meets
through the course of the book, each more clued in on his journey and
its purpose than most of his group. Are there greater forces at work
here, helping to tilt the balance in favor of Lu and his friends –
no one ever stops to consider this . Jack Straw never explains the
true nature of their foe to his friends, and they never seek to
question him either, until prodded gently by one of Lu’s
acquaintances. When they do, Straw abruptly disappears, leaving
them an ancient notebook to draw their conclusions from, so
that they are greatly unprepared for what is to follow. And Lu, when
he is finally told about the circumstances surrounding his father’s
death, seems strangely untouched, never once pausing to grieve, rage
or even reflect upon it.
For all the issues I had with the
book, I must say that Year of the Horse redeems itself
with a cracker of a showdown, a very satisfying solution to the
mystery of the treasure, and enough tantalizing clues to suggest the
possibility of a sequel.