Living, The

I downloaded a copy of The Living by Matt De La Pena as part of this year's AudioSYNC programme of free YA audiobooks. It began well with the introduction of various characters on a luxury cruise ship. Our protagonist, Shy, is a Mexican-American teen working on the ship over the summer and we follow him, seeing this amazingly luxurious setting through his less-than-pampered eyes. I liked De La Pena's inclusion of characters from many nationalities, ethnic groups and social classes. He manages to present them all well and this is a definite strength of the book. However Australian listeners should beware of this Brilliance Audio recording. The narrator apparently hasn't ever heard an Australian accent so, for Kevin, he wavers around Dick-Van-Dyke-in-Mary-Poppins for several chapters before finally settling somewhere near Johannesburg. Kevin's supposedly Australian accent never even gets close!

The Living is a book in three distinct parts. The first is set on the cruise ship where we meet nuanced characters in beautifully described surroundings and I was happy to immerse myself in the story. Then a storm hits the ship, followed by The Big One - a giant earthquake in California which leads to a series of devastating tsunami. De La Pena's disaster writing is superb and had me breathless at the characters' predicament. The shipwreck is frighteningly realistic and I then really felt for those few survivors adrift at sea. Five star book to this point.

Then it all goes very weird, plot holes gape at pretty much every turn, and The Living dissolves into a completely different book altogether. And, my pet hate, becomes the First Of A Series thereby allowing the author to believe that he doesn't need to write a proper ending! Grrr! Very disappointing and I won't be risking my time on any further installments.