The first 100 pages were amazing, it was like reading Nabokov, but the whole dystopia thing didn't work for me. It's been done before and done much better.

A weird book. Or maybe philosophy and politics are not my cup.of tea.An interesting premise because it involved the shaping of young minds but yet it failed to deliver to me something that i could appreciate.

I remember thinking of this book fondly when I was in high school, but I was also a little weird and shocking - def gotta give this a re-read.

What a dreadful book. Four bored kids decide to run off to the forest and start their own republic where they make the rules and decide what is right and wrong. So we get the developing Republic with the hints of romances starting-and then it all goes downhill rapidly. The characters start talking complete nonsense, acting like idiots, bullying and intimidating each other...and the plot becomes so incomprehensible that I was thinking 'what the hell is going on?'. It was like an insane, weird, de...

This book was intensely dark, more so than I expected given the characters are all children! Although the writing was sometimes quite simplistic, that was appropriate given the age of the main character, and I did still think there were some really well written lines in there. I found that the book was less about Rousseau’s specific philosophical tenets than expected, given the description on the back of the book I had expected that to be a more focal point. The last portion of the book seemed f...

I'm not sure how I actually feel about this book, it's intense and disturbing yet has this strange dystopia undercurrent that adds an unusual and unique edge to the story. We follow four English teens, now living in France, as they decide to run to the forest and live their own way by their own rules. They are well organised, taking the food, water and equipment they will need and rapidly adapt to life away from civilisation. And all is going well, life is a dream of hunting, swimming and tree c...

Unexplained events and implausible character development made this a wasted read for me. I rushed to get through the final pages.

For starters, I'll confess I love Lord of The Flies and that "young/teenager people start their own society from scratch" is a concept that 1) always draws me 2) makes me very demanding because I have such high expectations.And this one, well...it would be an understatement to say it didn't meet these high expectations. First of all, the narrator was kinda boring - yeah I know it's the point - but to follow him through all this, especially at the end when he was becoming alcoholic/concussed/deli...

Describes a horrifying story of four kids that run away from home and create their own "republic" in the woods. Scary what these kids come up with.

Difficult book to judge. I heavily disliked the detailed descriptions of the underage children's sexual endeavours. How can I be comfortable reading an erotic scene involving a 14 year old???The last two chapters were also particularly disturbing, I felt like throwing up reading them. It wasn't pleasant. However, I did enjoy the writing style and I thought the general progression of the characters and their republic was interesting.

This was.. well, .. *insert nervous maniacal laughter here*I guess I would say this is a bit umm.. horror-ish (?) but it's more "wtf" than actual horror to me. Or I guess just plain creepy. But I've honestly no idea what genre this book falls inThe main character's nuts, their plan is nuts, what they're doing is nuts, and throughout the whole book, I just went "Y'all are nuts wtf"It's not the typical book is what I got from this.Some kids run into a forest and start a "revolution" (for whatever

I cannot start to imagine what this authors mind is like. I loved the idea of the four children making their own republic. Reading the blurb, I thought the children would have the difficulties of finding food, a few romances may occur ect, then they would give up and go home. I was quite disturbed by the easy way in which these chidren could kill a 'loved one'. The language used and the images created including the eyes always watching you created such a dramatic atmosphere, despite the fact t

A sordid, depressing, nihilistic book based on the 'Lord of the Flies' premise that underneath it all we are just savages.The plot groaned with all the absurdities. Four British children happen to make friends in a remote part of France where they escape by bicycle to a forest to live an idyllic lifestyle. Fortunately, for the author, the two brothers, Michael & Louis, are orphans and are being minded by an aunt who resents their presence. Their father died in a freak accident where he ran over

This book over all was really good to me. It is about a group of kids who run away to the forest to create a utopian society. It follows the teenage protagonist Michael and his slow descent into madness through brain washing, heart break, head trauma, and a predisposition to impulsive and unexplained violence mixed with repressed rage. Some complaints that people might have worh this book are the idea that these 4 kids could hide away in a small stretch of woods for months on end with out the au...

I thought a novel exploring Rousseauian ideals with a group of kids in a forest promised an interesting mix of Lord of the Flies and My side of the Mountain. Alas, it soon degenerated into teen angst and erotic adventures. Might suit some but a young boy's sexual fantasies with the cardboard cliched older girl was pretty off-putting and I gave up half way through.

The trouble is that all the time the children are in the forest you're constantly thinking that surely some aduts will soon find them.The 'frontier' is not a long distance from the camp and once the children start breaking into houses and public buildings you feel the authorities would do something more than sending helicopters to search for them (in a forest?!).Perhaps its all to do with sense of the detachment from reality which runs through the book and increases as the narrative unfolds.How

I like this weird, dark utopian novel about adolescents escaping to the woods to build a new republic. It's one I want to revisit at some point. Part young adult, part very adult, the novel is gruesome. The story has elements of history and theory; youth and coming of age; abject horror and suspense. This is a quick read, and worth more attention than it has received. Taylor works from a strong literary tradition. That said, the prose leaves something to be desired, even with the cool linguistic...

Difficult book to judge. I heavily disliked the detailed descriptions of the underage children's sexual endeavours. How can I be comfortable reading an erotic scene involving a 14 year old???The last two chapters were also particularly disturbing, I felt like throwing up reading them. It wasn't pleasant. However, I did enjoy the writing style and I thought the general progression of the characters and their republic was interesting.

Excellent Read! Gripping from start to finish. Magical blend inspired by George Orwell's 1964 as well as Lord of the Flies and other authors. Would definitely recommend it. It shows the nuances of teenage uncertainty and at the same time their adult experiences in the forest climax to an expectantly gruesome outcome.

Can't decide whether I liked this book or not. I read it in one sitting, through a night, so it held my attention. I definitely wanted to follow the plot through to the end and thought it portrayed aspects of teenage growing up well, first love/crush experiences, wanting to break out of being a child and explore the world on your own initiative. I liked the building tension as the book took a darker turn with the introduction of one character, and I liked the references to Rousseau. The only dow...