THE GREY SISTERS by Jo Treggiari. Review by Katherine Langrish.

Hello! Back in the early December rush, this review filled an unexpected gap. I alwways felt it deserved a full span of days, so here it is again - with a cover that matches the grey weather outside my window.

Today AWFULLY BIG REVIEWS once again welcomes the author Katherine Langrish as a Guest Reviewer, with her review of THE GREY SISTERS, an atmospheric, character-driven YA thriller by Canadian writer Jo Treggiari.

D and Spider have always been friends, but became even more closely united in grief when a plane carrying both their siblings crashed on The Grey Sisters, a three-peaked mountain towering ruggedly from the Canadian backwoods. Two years on, D spots in a news photo her sister’s cuddly toy tucked into the pillow of the crash’s sole survivor, a flight attendant recently woken from coma. Spurred into action, she sets out with Spider and their friend Min to visit the crash site on The Grey Sisters and perhaps find closure. But there’s growing disquiet as the girls drive their unreliable old VW wagon past squalid settlements in the wild, unfriendly woods to reach the bleak mess of the crash site.

Once she’d trained her eyes to see through the tangled undergrowth [Min] caught glimpses of RVs tucked under the trees, a cluster of dilapidated houses no bigger than her parents’ goat shed and so derelict they seemed uninhabited, a few tiny shacks covered with tar-paper, which she guessed were outhouses, many abandoned sites strewn with bags of garbage, old refrigerators and wrecked cars. No one sitting on porches or working on their cars. She wondered if they were standing behind the curtains watching the VW go by.

…They almost missed it. At first glance it looked like another abandoned site, a dump of moldy papers and assorted garbage, but Min spied a thicket of wooden crosses marking the head of a dirt road leading through the trees. ‘Stop. Right here,’ she called. D pulled over and they got out.

It was a mess.

People had come here with their white candles and prayers and their tears, but now all that remained was what they’d left behind. Brightly coloured plastic flowers trodden into the dirt, photographs too rain-soaked to identify, pinwheels and lots of toys.

Without knowing it, the three girls are running into danger. The Grey Sisters is home to a survivalist, militarist cult called Avalon, run by a leader known as Big Daddy who keeps his people isolated and teaches them to prepare for the apocalypse. Women in the cult are either warriors or ‘cows’, used for breeding; babies are sold to buy guns. Ariel has lived in the cult all her life and distrusts outsiders, but desperate to save her friend Aaron who’s been savaged by a bear, she descends the mountain for help and encounters D, Min and Spider. Then the three newcomers pitch camp not far from Big Daddy’s compound – and Min disappears. Heart-stopping adventures ensue.

I read this book in a single sitting. It’s gritty, fast-paced, with a wonderful sense of place. Most of all I love the courage of its four resourceful, active heroines as they take on Big Daddy and his armed warriors, the brutish Uncles. 

 THE GREY SISTERS by Jo Treggiarri  is published  by Penguin Random House/Penguin Teen Canada 2019 . It is available from Thursday 5th December in hardcover (£14.99) and as an e-book from amazon.co.uk

 Katherine Langrish is the author of several notable childrens books, including the TROLL FELL trilogy.

She also writes wonderful posts about myths, fairytales and folklore in her own blog SEVEN MILES OF STEEL THISTLES:   https://steelthistles.blogspot

Her current post is  on the theme of the "Grey Sisters" in all their many appearances.

A selection of Katherine's earlier Steel Thistles articles, expanded, is available in print and e-book format from Amazon.

 

 

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'Ashes, Ashes' by Jo Treggiari - reviewed by Katherine Langrish

Dystopian and post-apocalyptic YA novels are in vogue right now, in accordance with the flowing tides of the Zeitgeist.  I’m writing one myself, which gives me an extra reason for reading and enjoying many of them… but for me, Jo Treggiari’s ‘Ashes, Ashes’ stands out. 

Yes, it’s about teenagers caught up in the aftermath of catastrophe – but lo and behold, there are older folk involved too.  Yes, there’s romance: but Treggiari disdains the Hollywood approach.  Instead of the gamine heroine with perfectly tousled hair, dressed in battle-chic and ready for combat, the book opens with 16 year old Lucy, dirty, sweaty and greasy-haired, crouched in her muddy shelter on the shores of what used to be Central Park, painfully trying to butcher a turtle.  Sea-level rise and haemorrhagic plague have devastated the human population, and the survivors spend most of their time and energy trying to scavenge enough food to get by. 

Pursued by a pack of vicious dogs, Lucy is helped to safety by a boy called Aidan.  When her camp is destroyed by a tsunami she joins his small community of survivors, only to discover that their shanty town is regularly raided by an army of ‘Sweepers’ who carry off children and elders to their headquarters and – apparently – experiment on them.

The world of the novel is detailed, carefully imagined, realistically bleak, but with flashes of beauty.  Lucy and Aidan feel like real people – ordinary teenagers caught up in something terrible, whose resilience comes out in humour, wisecracks, and ultimately in the sort of selfless courage it's good to be reminded young people - or any people - are capable of.

The title ‘Ashes, Ashes’ is a line from the American version of the nursery rhyme ‘Ring a Roses’:

Ring around the roses

A pocketful of posies

Ashes, ashes,

We all fall down.

I don’t know if there’ll be a sequel, but if you’re into post-apocalyptic fiction, this is definitely one to look out for.

“Ashes, Ashes” by Jo Treggiari,  Scholastic Press 2011

Hardcover $17.99 US

Available as a Kindle Edition

ISBN 978-0-545-25563-9

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