The Wall - Jen Minkman

The Wall

By Jen Minkman

  • Release Date: 2013-10-03
  • Genre: Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults
Score: 4
4
From 83 Ratings

Description

'I walk toward the sea. The endless surface of the water extends to the horizon, whichever way I look.
Our world is small. We're on our own, and we only have ourselves to depend on. We rely on the Force deep within us as taught to us by our forefathers. 
If I were to walk westward from here, I'd come across a barrier - the Wall. Behind it, there are Fools. At least, that's what everyone says. I've never seen one.'

Leia lives on an island where children leave their parents to take care of themselves when they're just ten years old. Across the island runs a Wall that no one has ever crossed. The Fools living behind it should be shunned because they believe in salvation from across the sea. That's what The Book says, the only thing left to the Eastern Islanders by their ancestors. 
But when a strange man washes ashore and Leia meets a Fool face to face, her life will never be the same again. Walt, the boy from the other side of the Wall, isn't as foolish as she was always led to believe. And as Leia and Walt set out to bring the truth about both their societies to light, all the things they once took for granted fall by the wayside.

Their island world is about to change... for better or for worse.

This is a series starter - the follow-up books are also available (The Deep, Beyond the Fence, Across the Sea). 

Reviews

  • LOVED it!!!

    5
    By Uptdchxgitghgu
    I really loved this book; the beginning was on the slower side but after that it got really really good.
  • Review: The Waves, by Jen Minkman

    4
    By Robert Zimmermann
    It’s been a few years since I first read The Island by Jen Minkman. The Waves is the second novella in The Island series, though instead of being a book two, it’s a parallel story to The Island. While this is a story parallel to the first novella, telling the story of life on the other side of Tresco, it’s also a little more in-depth of a story. What I like best about these books isn’t that there’s action or romance or anything like that, but that there’s a well-written backstory to how the two settlements on this island came to be, and what happened to the world. Even though I knew what would be revealed in The Waves because I read The Island, I was drawn in as the story unfolded. It was a different culture dealing with the new information about its history. It was also a different prescriptive put on the events that take place later in the story. Minkman, again, entertains her readers, makes them think into the deeper meanings behind Tresco’s history, and also makes readers meditate on faith and what it means to believe, no matter what it is that one believes in. There’s a third book in this series now, The Deep, and it seems to continue from where the first two books left off. The story will move forward, and I plan on moving forward with the characters. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in store for them.