Incurable - John Marsden ~ Narrated by Mikaela Martin
“I held my line. I knew from the war, if not from shooting rabbits, that we were safe enough for the first moments. It is too impossible to hit a target like us from a helicopter that’s rocking and rolling and trying to find its target. But maybe this guy had new equipment or maybe he was a brilliant shot or maybe he was just plain lucky. Bullet holes tore through the ute like a huge metal punch was suddenly and roughly slamming a simultaneous line of them from our rear to our front.”
One of my greatest literary discoveries this year has been the “Tomorrow” series by John Marsden. Starting with Tomorrow, When the War Began, the series follows Ellie Linton and her friends as they struggle to keep themselves alive and survive the sudden invasion of their country and the resulting war.
I’ve spent many a rewarding hour, reading (and listening) my way though the seven books that compromise the series, essentially young adult books, the quality of the writing is such, that I’d heartily recommend them to any adult who wanted to read them.
Incurable is part of a second trilogy of books, The Ellie Chronicles, which charts Ellie’s struggles to return to normal life now the war is over. Now orphaned, Ellie has to juggle school, keeping the farm running, and looking after Gavin, one of the kids they found and looked after in the later books of the Tomorrow books, and her involvement with Liberation, a guerrilla group which raids the new foreign settlement.
The Ellie Chronicles, tend to lack some of the drive and rush of the original series, unavoidable really, considering that the war is over. Still there is plenty to enjoy, the end of the war wasn’t a neat line in the sand, and Ellie and her friends have plenty of repercussions to deal with.
I’ve listen to a few of the books on audio, and the previous narrator, Suzi Dougherty, for me, perfectly captured, Ellie’s voice, and the books were a delight to listen to, providing new insight to some the events I had previously read about.
Incurable, marks a change in narrator, with Mikaela Martin, taking the reigns and I have to say I approached this audiobook with some trepidation because of it. So as such, I might not be being completely fair, when I say I didn’t enjoy her version.
Her interpretation of Ellie, just wasn’t right for me, yes she’s only a teenager, but Martin’s soft little girl version seemed to lack some of the strength, capability and maturity Ellie had gained through her experiences, certainly little of Ellie’s fierceness was on show. Martin’s pace seemed off as well, not flat exactly, but every event seemed to happen at the same speed, whether it be the gang chatting in Ellie’s kitchen or haring off on a Liberation raid.
The story itself, I enjoyed and it’s worthy of its place in the series, but this time, the audio book not so much.
Buy, Incurable (Ellie Chronicles) at Amazon.
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I discovered the Tomorrow series a few years back and have been very slowly working my way through them. They are so good I don’t want to finish them! There has been lots of talk of a movie being made of the books.
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