This is the one where they accidentally manage to blow up the airport. Yay! They are back to being the insanely destructive, brilliantly successful ruthless terrorists we know and love. And they're more psychologically messed up than ever. Marsden throws in a few wombat and platypus subplots and the action scene goes on for way too long, but otherwise it's great.Here's my review of the series as a whole....When The Wire first came out, it was hailed as the greatest TV show ever, because the writers decided to structure it like a novel, with a slow development of character and plot. The Tomorrow series is the opposite - it's literature which feels like a great TV show. Each installment is like a new season, which brings a new set of challenges, villains and tragedies, but throughout it all the characters continue to develop and move inexorably towards their eventual fates. It's a hard series to rate because although I'd give it five stars as a whole, few of the individual books rate that highly as stand-alone narratives. What's great about the series...- It's seriously unputdownable. I have been neglecting my family for the last few days while I walk around plugged into my audio book. I keep meaning to stop and listen to something else after the book I'm currently on, but then can't stop myself picking up the next in the series. It's like literary chain smoking.- The characters and their development. I'm so glad Marsden decided to write a second series about Ellie, because these characters are so vivid it's hard to imagine they don't have life off the page. It reminds me of The Great Gatsby in that respect! Their transformation from innocents, to adventure heroes, to psychologically damaged, ruthless terrorists is gripping and poignant.- Resonance. These books stay with you for a long time after you've read them. They remind me of Suzanne Collins books (The Gregor the Overlander books in particular) in that they explore the psychological trauma of war and violence in what is effectively a SFF context.- Realistic teenage romance and sex.-It's unapologetically anti-adult. Until half way through the last books, all the grown-ups are incompetent, impotent or villainous. The teenage heroes basically save Australia single handedly. Don't ask me why I find this so cool, when I'm reading it at the age of 44. It just is - like the Hunger Games.- The setting - it's about kids in rural Australia doing what they do best. My students love this book because they can identify with it so completely. I love Marsden's evocation of the bush and small town life - it's not only atmospheric but intricately detailed. How can these not be real places? I feel as if I could find my way to Hell and navigate around Wirrawee. - It makes terrorism cool. I know this sounds like it should be on the 'bad' list, but Marsden has indoctrinated me so well that I now can't think of anything more fun than blowing up a major piece of infrastructure. Massive loss of life? Hey, no problem - they invaded Australia, right? The genius of the writing is that the reader journeys with the characters as they become increasingly addicted to killing and destruction. What's not so great...- Xenophobia. The heroes hate 'the enemy'. There are a couple of brief discussions about how they can understand why the enemy invaded. They repeatedly encounter enemy soldiers who, Ellie remarks, seem remarkably like themselves, and then kill them in cold blood. This lack of empathy and remorse, and pathological obsession with revenge is, I believe, the norm in times of war, so it's not unrealistic given that it's a first-person account. It would have been great, though, to have an authorial voice or metanarrative questioning this attitude. Ordinary 'enemy' civilians are brought in to settle the country but they are never depicted in any detail. I kept waiting for the morally interesting scene where the heroes are thrown together with an 'enemy' but it never happens. - It's repetitive. Very repetitive. They hang out in Hell feeling bored. They sneak around. They almost get caught many, many times. They blow up increasingly large and important things. They kill people in cold blood, muse briefly about how they are losing their humanity and then kill a few more people. A major character dies. They feel sad, and then go and wreak more destruction to cheer themselves up. Repeat for so many books I lost count of which I was on around book four or five.
Picking up shortly after the conclusion of Darkness, Be My Friend, the teens find themselves back in Hell, feeling like they have been abandoned by the New Zealanders after their failed attempt to sabotage the local airport. Each is driven by their own feelings as to what they want to do next, but as a group they once again make a decision and stick to it.After deciding that staying in Hell is not in the best interests of the group as a whole, they decide to make the trip to the nearest big city, Stratton, in hopes of making contact with their families, some of which are rumoured to be working in the nearby vicinity.On a personal note, when reading these books I always come across more and more Australian slang words that I had completely forgotten about over the past few years, and I loved it (and even tried some out on friends and colleagues, with much hilarity and strange looks ensuing). I've always wondered how this comes across to readers who aren't Australian or haven't been exposed to the slang before, but this whole series definitely FEELS Australian, and I'm glad that hasn't faded away.Ellie continues to feel conflicted about her feelings for Lee, and there's a quite grown-up perspective to how they behave with each other which reflects just how much the characters have matured and continue to do so. Burning for Revenge is probably the most action packed book of the series so far - the group embarks on yet another act of sabotage, which is probably the most on-the-fly thing they have done so far - and they utilise both their old knowledge and bravery they have gained along the way. The final act of the book is also incredibly intense, and really shows the lengths that the characters go to to protect each other - and even forgive something they could never have moved on from in the past.Burning for Revenge is the fifth installment of the Tomorrow series, and although the risk with such a long series is that the plot and characters can feel a bit similar, Marsden continues to up the ante both in terms of intensity and in how far the teens go to try and sabotage the enemy that has invaded Australia.
What do You think about Burning For Revenge (2006)?
Wow, this one was thrilling!! I pretty much read it all in one go and couldn't put it down, I was glued to the pages and hovering on the edge of my seat, practically holding my breath. Their attack on the airfield (at last!) had me absolutely terrified for them, I was certain that all five wouldn't make it out alive. (view spoiler)[And then later on when Ellie followed Lee - the traitorous jerk! - I was certain that he was doomed as well... maybe a little sad that he did end up making it after what he did ;) (hide spoiler)]
—Sally
Another great read in the teen series, this book moves at a frenetic pace and is hard to put down. Sometimes I find the coincidences get a little grating - they are often on the brink of being discovered/shot/captured and then something miraculous happens and they survive to fight another day, but the strength of these books lies in their development of human relationships and how the teens cope in such a stressful environment. Every time I finish one of these books I wish I had the next one to start straight away - best get off to the library ASAP!
—Penny
This review was originally posted on The Moonlight Library After their failure to do anything successful in the last book, our intrepid teens decide it’s time to go out and fuck up the war effort some more. Completely by accident they find themselves inside the very airfield the missing Kiwi soldiers were planning to attack. Surrounded by enemies, will our heroes make it out alive, and can they cause some chaos while they do it?Lee is completely unpredicatable in this book. Half the time he’s raging, or cool as a cucumber, or risking it all, or planning ahead. He’s all over the place as the stresses of war get to him. Kevin completely breaks down and is basically useless the entire book. And Fi and Ellie grow even closer, to totally and completely BFF.This book contains all of the explosions and firestorms and chaos that was missing in the last book. Not only do our teen heroes manage to escape with their lives, but they royally fuck up the airfield. They escape Wirrawee down the river and end up in Stratton – the same place they were held prisoner and was bombed by the Kiwis in Book 3. Stratton’s quieter these days, ruled by fearless street kids and not many soldiers. Even then, it’s Lee who screws up and nearly gets everyone murdered by visiting his bit on the side. If it weren’t for Ellie keeping an eye on him and burning down a barn, he’d be dead. As it is, Ellie explores her feelings for him in this book. She also spends a lot of time thinking about Robyn, which I think is lovely, because I freaking loved Robyn.With the extra danger, bigger explosions, and general chaos interspersed with character-building introspection and quieter moments demonstrating the normal life of an invaded country still at war, this is one of the better books in the series.
—Nemo (the Moonlight Library)
