PUBLISHED: London : Hot Key Books, 2013.
PLOT: (spoiler alert)
In an alternate England, all of London's garbage is owned by one family (the Iremongers), and has been for generations. All the garbage is shipped to one location - the Heaps, which spread for miles in enormous mounds. In the middle of the heaps is a mansion, put together from bits and pieces of houses that have been acquired over the years by the Iremonger forefathers. Here live the Iremongers - generations of them. All the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. They also intermarry by pre-arrangement (the fact that this leads to genetic abnormalities is not addressed directly, but is hinted at). The 'pure blood' Iremongers live in the top part of the house, and the non-pure bloods, distant relations, are their servants. Because the family's wealth is built from what is scavenged from the heaps, objects are treasured. In fact, they have a bizarre ritual that every Iremonger (pure-blood and servants alike) are given a birth object at birth. (We find that they mix a piece of the object with the Iremonger's blood and then inject it back into the Iremonger, which causes the object and Iremonger to be bound to each other - the Iremonger will die without their birth object).
Clod, a pure-blood, has the unusual gift that he can hear the birth objects talking. They call out names; their own names. Clod's birth object, a bath plug, says 'James Henry Haywood'.
We discover that there in a strange disease around which causes people to turn into objects, and in fact that is what all the birth objects are - people. If a birth object and Iremonger are separated for too long, the object will turn back into a person (with no memory), and the Iremonger will turn into an object.
Trouble starts when a non-Iremonger, Lucy, is accidentally bought into the house as a servant and given a birth object. This is such a terrible trespass that the objects take on a life of their own beyond simply saying their names; they being to move of their own accord and revolt, joining together to form a Gathering (they become sort of robotic, the objects becoming one Being intent on destruction and growing larger with every object that joins it). If it escapes the house into the heaps, it will become a monster, gathering all the objects from the massive heaps of garbage surrounding the house.
Lucy, being a non-Iremonger, can't understand their way of life, but she strikes up a friendship with Clod, who, predictably, falls in love with her. Any relationship between the servants and the upper house is forbidden, so their friendship is secret, until the chaos starts and it comes out that a servant has been mixing (even kissing! oh the horror!) an upper house Iremonger. This sin is, of course, part of the reason why the objects are in revolt, and the servant Iremongers are out for Lucy's blood (literally).
As chaos rages through the house, Lucy escapes and hides about the house, and Clod is chased by the Gathering. Eventually, they meet up again, with plans to escape the house (another thing that is forbidden) and live together happily ever after. Just as the Gathering is about to let all hell break lose, the Grandfather comes in and destroys it. Clod and Lucy are then turned into objects, their birth objects turn back into people. and here the story ends, presumably with life for the Iremongers returning to how it has been - uninterrupted by Iremongers, servants, and objects which don't know their place.
Woven throughout the story are themes of dysfunctional families, friendship, bullying, death, and social taboos.
REVIEW:
I have to say, I found it really hard to get into this book. The story struggled and dragged in many parts. Everything was predictable. The author failed to draw the reader in, and I had little empathy for anyone other than Clod and his friend, Tummis (a bullied and misunderstood teen who eventually commits suicide).
The story is slightly enhanced by portraits of the different Iremonger family and servant members and illustrations of the cross sections of the upper and lower house on the front and back pages, but these illustrations are not enough to pull it up a notch.
Apparently, the book is the first in what will be a trilogy, but I will be avoiding it. It's not the most rubbish book I've ever picked up (it was a struggle, but I did finish), but I found it a waste of my time and I would not recommend it to anyone. For children who like quirky ideas, there are FAR FAR better titles (such a Lemony Snicket, Skulduggery Pleasant, or The Graveyard Book - comparing The Graveyard Book to Heap House is like comparing chocolate mousse to a mud pie).
AGE: it is marketed at ages 9-12, but I would hesitate to recommend it to under 11's.
RATING: 2 stars
In an alternate England, all of London's garbage is owned by one family (the Iremongers), and has been for generations. All the garbage is shipped to one location - the Heaps, which spread for miles in enormous mounds. In the middle of the heaps is a mansion, put together from bits and pieces of houses that have been acquired over the years by the Iremonger forefathers. Here live the Iremongers - generations of them. All the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. They also intermarry by pre-arrangement (the fact that this leads to genetic abnormalities is not addressed directly, but is hinted at). The 'pure blood' Iremongers live in the top part of the house, and the non-pure bloods, distant relations, are their servants. Because the family's wealth is built from what is scavenged from the heaps, objects are treasured. In fact, they have a bizarre ritual that every Iremonger (pure-blood and servants alike) are given a birth object at birth. (We find that they mix a piece of the object with the Iremonger's blood and then inject it back into the Iremonger, which causes the object and Iremonger to be bound to each other - the Iremonger will die without their birth object).
Clod, a pure-blood, has the unusual gift that he can hear the birth objects talking. They call out names; their own names. Clod's birth object, a bath plug, says 'James Henry Haywood'.
We discover that there in a strange disease around which causes people to turn into objects, and in fact that is what all the birth objects are - people. If a birth object and Iremonger are separated for too long, the object will turn back into a person (with no memory), and the Iremonger will turn into an object.
Trouble starts when a non-Iremonger, Lucy, is accidentally bought into the house as a servant and given a birth object. This is such a terrible trespass that the objects take on a life of their own beyond simply saying their names; they being to move of their own accord and revolt, joining together to form a Gathering (they become sort of robotic, the objects becoming one Being intent on destruction and growing larger with every object that joins it). If it escapes the house into the heaps, it will become a monster, gathering all the objects from the massive heaps of garbage surrounding the house.
Lucy, being a non-Iremonger, can't understand their way of life, but she strikes up a friendship with Clod, who, predictably, falls in love with her. Any relationship between the servants and the upper house is forbidden, so their friendship is secret, until the chaos starts and it comes out that a servant has been mixing (even kissing! oh the horror!) an upper house Iremonger. This sin is, of course, part of the reason why the objects are in revolt, and the servant Iremongers are out for Lucy's blood (literally).
As chaos rages through the house, Lucy escapes and hides about the house, and Clod is chased by the Gathering. Eventually, they meet up again, with plans to escape the house (another thing that is forbidden) and live together happily ever after. Just as the Gathering is about to let all hell break lose, the Grandfather comes in and destroys it. Clod and Lucy are then turned into objects, their birth objects turn back into people. and here the story ends, presumably with life for the Iremongers returning to how it has been - uninterrupted by Iremongers, servants, and objects which don't know their place.
Woven throughout the story are themes of dysfunctional families, friendship, bullying, death, and social taboos.
REVIEW:
I have to say, I found it really hard to get into this book. The story struggled and dragged in many parts. Everything was predictable. The author failed to draw the reader in, and I had little empathy for anyone other than Clod and his friend, Tummis (a bullied and misunderstood teen who eventually commits suicide).
The story is slightly enhanced by portraits of the different Iremonger family and servant members and illustrations of the cross sections of the upper and lower house on the front and back pages, but these illustrations are not enough to pull it up a notch.
Apparently, the book is the first in what will be a trilogy, but I will be avoiding it. It's not the most rubbish book I've ever picked up (it was a struggle, but I did finish), but I found it a waste of my time and I would not recommend it to anyone. For children who like quirky ideas, there are FAR FAR better titles (such a Lemony Snicket, Skulduggery Pleasant, or The Graveyard Book - comparing The Graveyard Book to Heap House is like comparing chocolate mousse to a mud pie).
AGE: it is marketed at ages 9-12, but I would hesitate to recommend it to under 11's.
RATING: 2 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment