★ 03/14/2016
Ingram (Eat Your Heart Out) reinvents the alien-invasion novel and mixes it with a quintessential young adult sensibility that feels raw and real. Jordan Fontaine is a teenager in a world where children are drafted by Earth’s alien overlords to become either cattle or experimental subjects. When Jordan and her brothers are selected, she begins a rigorous training program that leads her to come to terms with the horror around her. Stubbornly, she refuses to accept her fate and frequently acts out against her superiors. Jordan’s life is altered again when a dangerous opportunity presents itself. Ingram has invigorated the apocalyptic genre with a tightly woven story brimming with atmosphere; the world the Fontaines live in is equal parts familiar and surreal. There is a quiet depth and intensity to Jordan that makes it easy for readers to invest in her personal struggles. Ingram’s supporting cast is also well-rounded, and the action moves along at a fast clip. This novel is at once refreshing and thoughtful, and a great addition to the genre. (May)
"Ingram (Eat Your Heart Out, 2015, etc.) gives a nightmarish twist to the familiar YA formula of teenagers facing martyrdom by an oppressive society.... An absorbing and poignant YA dystopian fantasy with a convincing heroine." - Kirkus Review, starred review
"Ingram has invigorated the apocalyptic genre with a tightly woven story brimming with atmosphere.... This novel is at once refreshing and thoughtful, and a great addition to the genre." - Publishers Weekly, starred review
"This is a short read...but it manages to convey this world and an engaging plot without seeming rushed. Dayna Ingram has a gift for imagining rich and disturbing worlds. Although The Over are fantastical, the rest of the world seems brutally realistic. I was hooked from the first fire-and-brimstone chapter, and was kept clinging on until the very last page. Eat Your Heart Out is one of my favourite books (who can resist lesbians and zombies?), and All Good Children definitely lives up to those expectations." - Danika Leigh Ellis for The Lesbruary
"All Good Children is suffused with compassion, outrage, despair, and dreams that die at birth. Dayna Ingram has crafted every fiber of this rich tapestry with the utmost care. And-like the reader-all are held in exquisite tension." - Lea Daley, author of FutureDyke
10/01/2016
Gr 8 Up—Jordan, a fearless and curious teenager, has heard stories of the ominous "Over" and "summer camp" stories her whole life. The Over are nine-foot tall birdlike creatures that have somehow taken over the entire world, watch humans from the sky, and are instilling fear into society just to "keep the peace." They also make sure that their own existence is maintained. Summer camp isn't quite what it sounds like, and Jordan's rebellious behavior gets her noticed in the most unexpected way. While trying to figure out her own path in this world, Jordan finds herself in the middle of a life-altering process that could bring down the current establishment, and she figures out why all of her peers' dreams are extinguished (quite literally) at birth. Ingram uses this beautifully written novel to bring Jordan and her family's fears to life—separation, the possibility of aliens taking over the world, and the frightening but enticing idea of a revolution. This new and invigorating addition to the YA category spotlights the bond of family and explores women's rights. Jordan develops from a naive teenager who is just trying to make it through her "special-needs" class to a very aware young woman, growing more and more skeptical of the government and her surroundings. This work ends with a cliff-hanger, as the protagonist finds herself at the beginning of a potential revolution. VERDICT A worthy selection for YA sci-fi collections.—Annette Muyumba, Purdue University, Lafayette, IN
★ 2016-05-23
A teenager works through her emotional turmoil while waiting to become a sacrificial offering to aliens in this sci-fi melodrama. In the near future, Earth has been conquered by 9-foot-tall, telepathic, flying vulture-demons who swoop down and eviscerate people with their razor-sharp talons and beaks—neither bullets nor bird shot nor nuclear bombs slow them down. They call themselves the Over, in honor of the Übermensch figure lionized by the philosopher Nietzsche. The Over impose a peace treaty, allowing humans to run their own affairs as long as they deliver a yearly quota of teens to the demons’ “Summer Program.” This sleep-away/death camp features canoes and cabins but also armed guards, mean counselors, numbers instead of names, and mind-numbing group therapy/brainwashing sessions. It culminates with campers being assigned to 1) getting eaten by the Over, 2) getting impregnated by other teens many times and then getting eaten, or 3) becoming a “seed” in the parasitic Over reproductive cycle. Dragooned into the program, 14-year-old rebel Jordan Fontaine continues her habitual, sarcastic defiance of authority, flinging wisecracks at officious counselors; subtly fencing with Heaven Omalis, a beautiful, sympathetic human Liaison working for the Over; carving her name into her flesh; and finally making contact with a Resistance leader who wants her to undertake a mission against the feathered Overlords. “They’re winning because they are smarter, and they are smarter because we’ve let them dumb us down,” the leader says. Ingram (Eat Your Heart Out, 2015, etc.) gives a nightmarish twist to the familiar YA formula of teenagers facing martyrdom by an oppressive society. The Over, who mainly glare balefully at people, are a distant, ominous presence in a novel that is mostly about human relationships roiled by their demands. The atmosphere of adolescent angst develops around fraught conversations, from Jordan’s anguished exchanges with her parents to her sullen mouthing off in group therapy; the result feels like a mashup of The Hunger Games, “The Lottery,” Girl, Interrupted, and Auschwitz, with malevolent buzzards thrown in. It’s also a lesbian story: Jordan gravitates toward a first girl-love with a cabin mate but melts down when Heaven starts sexually teasing her. Heaven, meanwhile, has her own affair with mysterious stripper Marla Matheson. Jordan is a believable girl in an impossible situation; despite the pulpy elements, Ingram gives her story a realism and emotional depth that make the reader care about her protagonist’s fate. An absorbing and poignant YA dystopian fantasy with a convincing heroine.
