The Worlds We Make

Written by Megan Crewe

Disney Hyperion

978-1423146186

288 pp.

Ages 12+

February, 2014

At the conclusion of Megan Crewe's The Lives We Lost (reviewed here on May 28, 2013), a hapless group of young people were leaving inhospitable Toronto to attempt to deliver a vaccine to the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia in the hopes that the CDC would be able to mass produce the vaccine needed to save those uninfected with the widespread and deadly virus. The group, led by Kaelyn whose father had produced the vaccine, consists of Gav, her boyfriend, who she'd met while fighting the virus in their island community; Leo, her former best friend who had just returned to the island after making his way from New York City; Tobias, a young soldier who rescued them from the island; Justin, a reckless fourteen-year-old who'd forced them to take him; and a new recruit, Anika, a former ally of the scary Wardens and their leader Michael.  But getting the vaccine to the CDC is far more difficult than just finding a vehicle and gasoline to get it there.  The group must outwit and escape the omnipotent Michael and his legions of Wardens who are determined to get the vaccine for themselves.  So begins The Worlds We Make, the conclusion to Megan Crewe's Fallen World Trilogy.

Heading south in an SUV stolen from Michael's well-organized and well-supplied gang, Kaelyn and her entourage continue to deal with incredible snow storms and the fear that Gav and possibly Tobias have become infected with the virus.  A flat tire lays them up in a small town, searching for a new tire and supplies, attempting to contact the CDC by radio and, worst of all, isolating the now delusional Gav from all but the immune Kaelyn.  Gav's death leaves Kaelyn reeling, though his message to her on a scrap of paper in his jeans compels her to keep focused on getting to Atlanta. 

The group's journey is essentially a series of driving episodes interjected with stops to search for supplies and encounters with individuals or evidence of those who are no longer around (having died or left). Mostly they are observers of phenomena from fire balls in the sky, to a suicide victim, a well-stocked hunter's cabin, a commercial pig farm where the animals were left caged to die, and isolated communities of people, sometimes welcoming, sometimes not.  Though they connect with a Dr. Guzman at the CDC who prepares for their arrival and analysis of the vaccine for production, their capture by Michael's Wardens suspends their travels and threatens their only goal and their lives.

While the plot is very directed i.e., the group endures different horrors as they attempt to reach the CDC, the story is bigger than the plot in The Worlds We Make.  It has more to do with the premise of creating a world we choose, not as we deem it to be as thrust upon us.  Sure the epidemic changed everything and everyone is reacting to that change.  Some don't change their ways at all and may remain safe or may become victims.  Some completely alter their behaviour, such as Michael who was formerly a policeman and now uses the knowledge he learned to successfully establish a criminal organization, based on fear and hostility.

Kaelyn begins to see their world as a new dynamic, based on survival and power, essentially without room for empathy.  Every choice they make now must be weighed against the potential for infection, attack and successful delivery of the vaccine.  Trust is a commodity in short supply.  Anika, the last to join their group, constantly looks ready to run.  Justin's bravado covers his insecurities related to his youth, his interest in Anika, and even his desire to make amends for his perceived lack of effort. Kaelyn is less able to edit her comments, never realizing the effect they have on others around her.  That is, until she comprehends that they see her as a leader, their leader, and she must not refrain from showing how much she values them just to avoid the hurt of losing them.

The world that Megan Crewe has created is one of desperation and paranoia.  The bad is often highlighted because it is overwhelming and tragic, but there are slivers of goodness like freshly-baked bread and home-made sandwiches, hugs of reassurance, and a simple smile.  The strength of character with which Megan Crewe has imbued Kaelyn carries the reader, as well as the group, to a surprising resolution to create a new actuality where bad and good must come together to make something better.

The Lives We Lost

Written by Megan Crewe
Disney Press
978-1423146179 

288 pp.

Ages 12+

February 2013

The first book in Megan Crewe's Fallen World Trilogy, The Way We Fall, ends with Kaelyn sighting her best friend, Leo, returning alone on the ferry to the island.   The Way We Fall is essentially a series of journal entries that Kaelyn has been writing to Leo who is attending dance school in New York City as a way to share her experiences about their island's ruin by a contagious virus that takes its victims from scratching, coughing and sneezing, to hysteria and delusions and ultimately death.  Though her microbiologist father had attempted to find a vaccine, he was killed senselessly by panic-stricken islanders.

The Lives We Lost begins with Leo's return and news that the virus has also ravaged the mainland communities and Kaelyn's discovery of six vials of vaccine that her father had synthesized before his death.  Determined to get the samples to Ottawa, probably the largest centre with medical and biotech facilities to help determine the vaccine's formulation, Kaelyn and her boyfriend Gav have loaded up an SUV with gas, food and supplies to help get them there in the bitter winter conditions of December.  But rogue soldiers dropping bombs from a helicopter onto their island has all of their group loading up a boat with the supplies and heading to the mainland with their rescuer, a young soldier named Tobias.  Once on the mainland, the plan changes to Kaelyn and Gav using Tobias' army jeep and travelling to Ottawa with Meredith, Kaelyn's young cousin; Leo; Tessa, Leo's girlfriend; and Tobias. 

So begins a trek across a frozen, deserted land, rife with criminal survivors and the awkwardness of Kaelyn and Leo's reunion, especially after he kisses her.  While the tenuous nature of their relationship pervades Kaelyn's deliberations on their journey, the danger and uncertainty of finding help overwhelm their daily travels.  It isn't long before the group crosses paths with some people who learn about the vaccine (courtesy of Meredith's innocent comment), disabling their jeep and hunting them down, using two-way radios and armed with rifles.  Kaelyn and company manage to evade this group, ultimately entering Quebec, always on the lookout for rations, shelter from cold and blizzards and transportation. 

Their arrival at a former artists' colony brings them some comforts: showers, warmth, food and information.  Although Gav and Tobias are quarantined, being the only two of the group who have not been exposed to the virus or received the vaccine, the rest are welcomed to stay with the colonists who've organized themselves well to protect themselves from danger and looters.  But, a surprise visit by those who'd been hunting Kaelyn's group for the vaccine has them on the road again, this time leaving Tessa and Meredith at the artists' retreat, and reluctantly letting fourteen-year-old Justin join them.  Their destination: Toronto.

While The Way We Fall reads as a series of shocking developments, The Lives We Lost emphasizes the arduous journey of Kaelyn and her group, looking for help and hope, forced to grow into their new lives because their former lives are gone, just as are so many of their loved ones.  Megan Crewe uses the unsettled winter weather, the unsophisticated characters and the fear of the unknown to keep the tension high.  The young people are never sure whom to trust or to what extent and what recourse they should follow whenever they cannot proceed as originally planned.  But they demonstrate the resilience and determination needed to achieve the greater good (i.e., get the vaccine replicated so that others' might survive); unfortunately, they learn that sometimes tough, even reprehensible choices must be made, whether to continue to strive for that greater good or just to survive, as we learn Leo did.  And yet Megan Crewe's characters could be anyone who finds themselves in desperate circumstances, drawing from their past experiences to help them maneuver through new situations: viral, fatal or otherwise.  With The Worlds We Make (Fallen World #3) due out in February 2014, readers will learn how successful they've all been in their endeavours.

The Way We Fall

Written by Megan Crewe
Hyperion Disney Group
978-1-4231-4616-2
308 pp.
Ages 12+
2011

There are many ways to fall.  You can fall down, fall in love, fall apart, fall asleep, fall at someone's feet, fall back, fall away, fall behind, fall flat on your face, fall short, fall afoul. And in Megan Crewe's first book in her YA Fallen World Trilogy, The Way We Fall, someone at sometime has demonstrated each type of falling.  On an island that succumbs to the wrath of an infectious virus, "falling" becomes the norm.

Through the journal entries of sixteen-year-old Kaelyn, ostensibly to her former best friend Leo who is going to school off the island, the reader is taken on a harrowing trek from health to illness to fear and death, with valiant efforts throughout to manage, if not eradicate, a contagion.  When the infection first hits, it is hard to differentiate it from a cold, with the typical coughing and sneezing.  However, when relentless scratching is evident, followed by displays of extreme expression of affection, distrust and hysteria, coupled with delusions, hospitalization is required. As the microbiologist on the island, Kaelyn's father becomes a central figure in the investigation of the virus, and Kaelyn, her older brother Drew, and Mom, an islander who manages the local café at the local service station, are among the first to wear masks and keep themselves home to avoid contact with others.

With the spread of the illness and deaths recorded from it, some islanders find their way off the island, though some, like Kaelyn's Uncle Emmett and her seven-year-old cousin, Meredith, are encouraged to wait until the mainland has secured a site to process them.  But, when the island is quarantined, the residents become reliant on the mainland government for food and medical and other supplies, a position that many protest, with consequences.  The reactions of the islanders as well as the mainlanders, including soldiers sent to offer protection, to the quarantine could warrant a study in fear.

While Kaelyn volunteers to notify residents of the quarantine and help get ill residents to hospital, Leo's girlfriend Tessa is recruited to help grow plants that may offer hope for treatment (a passionate gardener, Tessa has her own greenhouse).   A young man, Gav, who'd organized a group of guys into a Fight Club, had them "looting" from the grocery store and storing goods in a warehouse, arranging deliveries to those who couldn't get out, were ill, or had no support systems.  Through a series of interactions, including Gav coming by to teach them some self-defense, he and Kaelyn grow closer, offering each other support and affection in a troubling situation.

While I have shared very little about the sequence of events that lead to the story's end, probably because the plot and subplots are complex (but elegant), the reader will not be given much reprise from action and chaos of a community faced with more than a contagion; the mentality of those quarantined presents as much turmoil as the fatal infection itself.  The psychological responses of the residents to living with a contagious illness and in a quarantined situation vary from heroic and charitable to egocentric and even mercenary.  With a complex menagerie of characters, coupled with Megan Crewe's plotting and organizational style i.e., Kaelyn's short, dated journal entries addressed to Leo, The Way We Fall successfully keep readers interested throughout, appropriately earning it a nomination for this year's Forest of Reading®'s White Pine Award.  While the book offers some hope in its conclusion, don't expect everything to be resolved by the time the ferry finally approaches the island again; after all that falling, it will take a lot to help everything right itself ("in love" exempted).

Luckily, The Lives We Lost, Book 2 in the Fallen World Trilogy, came out just last month, and the title of the third book, The World We Make, has been announced for release in the winter of 2014. Megan Crewe can be assured that this reviewer will be pursuing those titles promptly, determined to learn more about Leo, Drew, Aunt Lillian, the underlying hostility between Drew and Gav, and the only positive fall - Kaelyn and Gav in love.