Future Leaders of Nowhere by Emily O’Beirne

Future Leaders of Nowhere by Emily O’Beirne

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the second book I’ve read by this author. Liked them both. First one I read involved a group of young women (I’d have said ‘friends’ but most were linked to one specific person who ended up not being able to go on the trip, instead of being friends of each other) taking a longish trip around . . . two or three continents (depending on whether or not coming from Australia should count, eh, probably not). They wandered Europe, and bits of Asia. I believe, if I recall correctly, that the young women did this trip in between whatever Australia’s version of high school is and college (or, in other words, most of them were around 18).

This book here? Younger bunch of kids – I believe there might have been a range of ages, though the one I do know was listed as being 16, and I imagine that the other lead character was probably that or near enough to that age. So, younger. And instead of going on a trip around half the world, the kids here go to a ‘Future Leaders of the World’ kind of camp wherein the many different kids are forced to compete as teams against each other in a kind of ‘you are all countries and/or ‘groups of people’ that interact with the other territories’ type of game. Oddly enough I ‘played’ the same type of game for a semester or two in an Economics class roughly when I was around the same age as these here. I was the leader of my own for that – think I ended up being something like ‘dictator of a Russia like country’.

The first half of the book is from Finn’s point of view. And, literally at the 50% mark, the book switches to Willa’s point of view. Then there are a few switching back and forths that occur in the last few chapters. I knew that going in, I think, though somewhere around the 44% mark I really was dreading switching. Nothing against Willa, I just wanted to continue reading things from Finn’s point of view. And I did lose some things from having the switch – lost watching some of the things Finn did. And yet, the switch worked well enough.

Books that switch point of views come in many different styles, though they tend to fall into three camps – switching by chapter, random head hopping that seems to have no clear set of rules as to when a switch occurs, and/or having have the book be from one character, then switching. All three have their positives and negatives, personally I kind of really dislike the version found here – half the book following one person’s point of view, half following the other, even more so than random head hopping. Why? Because it is very easy to fall into the trap of having the two halves of the books end up feeling like two completely different books – with the first ending abruptly (when the switch occurs). Well, as I said, the switch worked well enough here.

So – point of views. Kids – there are a mix of genders, races, body shapes, intellicut, areas of expertise etc. etc. If I read things correctly, and I imagine I might not have, Willa is in somewhat part Indian (as in from the subcontinent of India), though has no real connection to India beyond how she looks – because her mother, the same one who gave her the vaguely non-Indian name of ‘Willa’, died when Willa was young. And, again if I recall correctly, Finn would be white. I think. Bah, it’s been 2 or three days since I finished the book so I can’t recall now.

Neither Finn nor Willa have done much in terms of ‘fooling around’, though – prior to this summer camp trip thingie – had had relationships that imploded – Willa with some girl named ‘Freya’, and Finn with some guy named ‘Matt’. Both have been, so to speak, ‘damaged’ by the experience. And no, this is not a straight girl – lesbian girl romance type of situation. No, this is a bisexual girl and lesbian girl romance type of situation (though Finn has only kissed one girl, not dated any).

Okay . . . soooo what to say next. Well, I liked both characters who had points of view, there was some solid work done on putting together some well characterized side characters (for the most part – like, one of Finn’s best friends is a ‘Dan’ but other than him being the voice on the other end of a phone, I didn’t really have much idea who he was; otherwise I had some ‘hooks’ into the others). Good story. Interesting, entertaining. Good romance type thingie.

Um um um . . . good book. OH! What does a particular phrase mean that I spotted in the book? I looked it up via Google and it just lead me to some fanfiction stories that also use the phrase. ‘a ginger distance’. What is that mean? Is this some kind of slur? I think I know that ginger is a slur in British speak (used against people with red-ish hair), but this is Australian English.

Rating; 4.33

April 21 2017




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