Next up on my reading journey was Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden. This is a dystopian novel written in 1993 and is the first of seven books in the Tomorrow Series. The book takes place in the fictional, small town of Wirawee, Australia.
While the town is fictional the landmarks and environment are based on real places. Australia is the smallest continent in the world, as well as the largest country in Oceania and is entirely surrounded by water. Australia has a low population density, with 90% of its population living in urban areas. They call their wilderness “the bush” and that bush is where a significant amount of this book takes place.
Australia has a history of colonization, more than 500 indigenous groups populated Australia before the British colonized the country. During this beginning era of colonization nearly 60% of that population was wiped out. Tomorrow talks not necessarily of colonization, but of invasion.
The story starts in Shakespearean fashion, letting us know that a disaster has happened and then proceeding to tell us how we get there. The book is made to be the writings of the main protagonist, Ellie, describing the experiences of her and seven of her friends as Australia is invaded and taken over by armies from an unnamed country. They have evaded capture by happenstance, as they were on a camping trip in the bush when the invasion took place, but the rest of the town, including their families, have been captured.
Ellie’s camping mates include: Corrie, her childhood best friend, Kevin, Corrie’s boyfriend, Homer, who belongs to a Greek immigrant family and is another of Ellie’s childhood friends, Fiona or Fi, who lives in town and is the wealthiest of the group, Robyn, the daughter of a religious family, and Lee, whose family owns an Asian restaurant in town and is seen as the outsider of the group.
Ellie is the most likable of the characters, since the book is in her point of view. The other cast of characters make up an often conflicting bunch, but their care for each other and desire to stay alive overcome these issues. While the characters lacked a bit of depth they kept me interested, at times even more so than the action that was going on around them.
Marsden alludes to a myriad of social issues in the book. Ellie has multiple revelations throughout her writing about her place in the world.
She acknowledges that in Australia she had felt safe, she thought that things like war, famine, and invasions didn't happen to a country like theirs or to people like them.
The portion of the bush that the teenagers camp at is called Hell, though it becomes their haven, and there is much discussion of how humans name things. How does human kind decide what is right or wrong? And who has the power to determine those things.
Alongside this point the book also discusses the morality of war and what makes it okay to sacrifice human life. At one point a character says that the invaders threw away the rule book (of morality) when they chose to invade. This being said by a white character introduces an interesting discussion. Before this event this boy had never experienced discrimination or danger because of where he lived or what he looked like. Would he still believe that victims have the right to fight back if he was not the one being attacked?
Since these issues are being discussed by teenagers they are mostly surface level. I am excited to see how they play out even further in the sequels. Overall I enjoyed this book and thought it was an interesting take on a dystopian novel that very naturally included the slang and environment of Australia, while also bringing up a lot of social topics.
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