Title: Gregor the Overlander
Author: Suzanne Collins
Blurber Blabber Review: Buy it now!
Blurb: An even better and more creative series by Suzanne Collins, author of the popular Hunger Games trilogy, about an 11 year-old boy named Gregor who falls from the laundry room of his New York apartment building into a secret underground world with his 2 year-old sister. This strange place is populated by humans and talking bats, roaches, spiders, and rats, who have created some good and bad, but always interesting, relationships. And of course no good fantasy series is complete without a mysterious prophecy that has already sucked in its willing and unwilling participants into a quest. While Collins fell short for me at times in the creation of an annoying and distant Katniss in the Hunger Games, she's done a much better job in my opinion with Gregor, a temperamental but good-hearted and courageous young boy. And if she can make me feel emotional about bats and roaches (ugh, shudder), then you know she's done a good job. If you liked the Hunger Games and are looking for more, or if you liked other fantasy series like Percy Jackson, Nicholas Flamel, and Chronicles of Narnia, then I highly recommend the Underland Chronicles. Hell, I recommend it to any reader. I must admit that I like the Underland Chronicles better than the Hunger Games, and my second rereading of both books confirmed this. My friend calls this blasphemy, but I just call it the truth!
Series: First book in a completed five (woohoo!) part series.
Language/Writing Style: Third person narrative. Mix of dialogue and internal thoughts of the main character Gregor. Lots of descriptive sections to present the underground world and the strange creatures.
Adult Content: There are a few deaths throughout the book, although most are animals and insects (doesn't make it any less sad or disturbing though!), and discussions about death. Also some references to battles and war casualties, oh and a slightly gross scene involving cannibalism among some bugs.
Rereadability: This is a very fast read and is a great one to reread many times as there is so much going on in this book you can find new details you may have missed the first time around. Also, it was great for me to go back and read this after I had finished the series because I already know what happens in the end and can catch some hints and foreshadowing. I finished my rereading of this book in one day - it was that fast and that good!
Published: 2004
Length: 320 pages
(Read on for the more detailed and SPOILER-filled "blabber" review)
After speed reading through the Hunger Games trilogy, I put down my e-reader and mourned the end of the series. I love/hate ending a newly discovered good series because I have the satisfaction of knowing how it ends but I can never erase it from my brain and have that exciting experience of reading it for the first time again. So I did the next best thing I could think of, I checked to see if Collins had written any other books and lo and behold I discovered she had written a five-part series (woohoo five books!) called the Underland Chronicles. I was ecstatic and promptly downloaded them one by one over the next several days. At the end I was even more distraught after ending the Hunger Games because the Underland Chronicles was such a beautifully woven story with an amazing and strange underground world, a cryptic propophecy, and leading characters that I loved way more than any of the Hunger Games characters. But let's just deal with book one for now.
So Gregor the Overlander is where it all begins. We're introduced to an 11 year-old boy named Gregor who is miserably looking after his 2 year-old sister named Boots (real name Margaret - no one in their right mind would name their child Boots, except for maybe Gywneth Paltrow) during the summer while his mom works full time, his other younger sister goes to summer camp, and his grandmother slips into senility. A few years ago Gregor's father mysteriously vanished without a trace and since then the family has struggled to continue on and maintain any semblance of happiness. One day as Gregor is doing laundry in the basement of his apartment building, he and Boots get sucked into an old air duct and tumble deep underground (very Alice in Wonderland but instead of a white rabbit and madhatter we get roaches and bats).
They eventually land, carried by an air current, and find themselves facing a group of 4-feet long, strange-talking cockroaches (AUUUGH!). That's like my biggest nightmare right there - being faced with giant roaches that talk to me in hissing Yoda-like speech (shudder). The roaches are drawn to Boots, who they refer to as a princess, mainly because she had the good grace to poop and the roaches are loving the smell of her poopy diapers. In the Underland, roaches are referred to as crawlers, so I’ll call them that from now on since I have such strong fear/hatred associated with roaches and I don’t want that to taint my enjoyment of this book. The roaches end up taking Gregor and boots to Regalia, the human city in the Underland that is populated by humans and their allies, the bats.
In Regalia we meet the haughty queen Luxa, a girl the same age as Gregor whose parents were killed by the humans’ enemies, the rats (or gnawers) a few years ago. Luxa is particularly close with her 16 year-old cousin, Henry, and a little more distant with her grandfather, Vikus, and her grandmother, Solovet (Solovet totally reminds me of a kinder-seeming Coin). Vikus is a constant diplomat always seeking peace while Solovet leads the Underland warriors and is an excellent battle strategist.
Vikus explains to Gregor the origins of Regalia - in the 1600s a man called Bartholomew of Sandwich was driven by his crazy, but true, prophecies to lead a group of people from England to New York, and eventually to the underground world. Here the people established a beautiful underground city and developed a strong alliance with the giant talking bats there, with many humans and bats forming individual bonds to protect each other to the death. While there was relative peace at one point, currently the humans are at constant tension with the giant talking rats, led by King Gorger. Basically every animal, insect, arachnid down there is huge and talks - gross, I know. There have been previous overlanders who have fallen into the Underland but most die without their sun or are killed by the rats. Pleasant.
Gregor quickly decides that he needs to get out of this “creepy” land and attempts to escape one night with Boots. Before they can get too far from Regalia they are attacked by two rats. Luckily a rescue team from Regalia that was chasing after Gregor swoops in with the bats just in time to rescue Gregor and Boots. Gregor shows his courage by staying to help defend the injured and they quickly make their way back to the palace.
Back at the palace, and after a bitch slap from Luxa, Vikus explains to Gregor that he believes one of Bartholomew’s prophecies has been triggered as the rat attack is one of the first events alluded to in The Prophecy of Gray. The Prophecy of Gray is a vague and cryptic prophecy that essentially says that when the humans kill some rats it’ll trigger a war with the rats and their only hope for survival is a quest led by an Overland warrior and a team consisting of pairs of royal Underlanders, bats, crawlers and spiders, with one rat “beside” and one “lost” up ahead. At the end of the quest the humans will be saved and only eight of the twelve team members will be left alive. The last one to die will decide the others’ fate at the last stand. Vikus also reveals that Gregor’s dad (apparently Gregor and his dad look alike) is being held captive by the rats who are using his science know-how to build weapons.
Man I love a good quest and cryptic prophecy. Before we have much time to let this sink in, the rats begin their attack on the humans and Gregor hurriedly grabs some flashlights, batteries, and a random can of root beer, before escaping with Boots, Luxa, Henry, Vikus, Solovet, a soldier named Mareth, and their respective bats. And the quest begins - game on!
Oh wait, we still need the other quest members. This is a little more difficult than the Lord of the Rings as they have to visit each of the bats, crawlers and spiders to ask for two representatives to join. First up is the bats, which is easy peasy with the existing alliance. It’s decided that Luxa’s and Henry’s bats, Aurora and Ares, will accompany them. Luxa’s and Henry’s level of trust with their bats is so strong they have no qualms about leaping off of cliffs, knowing that a bat will catch them in time. They try to demonstrate this by tossing Boots off a cliff where the bats play hot potato with a giggling Boots, which understandably pisses off a terrified Gregor, who is secretly afraid of heights and flying.
Next the group visits the crawlers. The crawlers are initially reluctant to join as they want to remain neutral in this war. But princess Boots seduces them with her whole-hearted acceptance and love for the crawlers and her unusual ability to recognize individual crawlers. In the middle of the night Gregor awakens and finds Boots in the middle of a strange dance with the crawlers, which Vikus helpfully informs us is an honorific dance they do for ones they believe to be chosen. That sounds horrible - dancing in the middle of a bunch of swaying roaches. Ugh. I mean crawlers! The next day the crawlers announce that Temp and Tick, will join the quest.
Next up are the spiders/spinners. Unfortunately the spiders decide to not join the quest and instead hold the group prisoner in a huge elaborate web. They manage to escape with a combination of Boots’ excellently timed and loud temper tantrum, Luxa’s and Aurora’s amazing flying skills, and Gregor’s random can of root beer. You just need to read it to find out the details because it’s too weird and complicated to describe here.
So no spiders and everyone is sad face. Then Vikus announces that he, Solovet and Mareth will be leaving them now and in their place he’s arranged for a guide....a RAT! Whoa, not cool. Luxa and Henry flip out but Gregor understands that they need a guide and a rat is included in the prophecy after all. The sarcastic and deadly rat, Ripred, is an old acquaintance of Vikus and Solovet from before when there was relative peace in the Underland. Ripred’s own agenda is that he wants to overthrow King Gorger and restore peace. The group reluctantly splits and Ripred leads them to the rat land. They are later joined by two spiders, who tell them that the rats attacked the spiders and they’ve come to join the quest. Unfortunately one of the spiders has been fatally injured and quickly dies. The other spider, Gox, eats him (EW) and joins the quest party. For a brief moment, all twelve quest members were together.
As they are crossing a bridge some rats attack the group. A sleeping and feverish Boots is stuck behind on top of Temp. Tick sacrifices herself by facing the rats alone, buying Temp enough time to scurry over the bridge before Gox cuts the bridge. I never ever thought I’d be so close to tears over a roach’s death!
They continue on and rescue Gregor’s dad, who is feverish like Boots. As they are planning their escape, Henry reveals that he has betrayed them for the rats. Henry had made a deal with Gorger to join forces with the rats to destroy all the other weaker species in the Underland, and in return he would rule Regalia. Heny tells Luxa to join them or die and Luxa refuses to join him (yea!). Gorger approaches with his gang of rats and quickly kills Gox. In that moment Gregor recalls the end of the prophecy and realizes that he can save the rest of the group by diverting the rats and sacrificing himself as the last one to die. He leaps over the rats and runs to the edge of a cliff hoping to give enough time for the others to escape. Instead of risking getting caught by the rats, he decides to leap off the cliff. As he’s falling he sees the ground collapse behind him and the chasing rats and Henry plunging to their death as well. Ares swoops down to save Henry....oh wait no, he overshoots! Henry yells out for Ares but Ares instead saves a surprised Gregor. This entire scene was so gripping! As soon as Gregor leaped, fulfilling the prophecy, and Ares swooped down and saved him instead of Henry, I knew I was hooked.
Ares tells Gregor that he didn’t know about Henry’s betrayal and the group makes their way back to Regalia where the war has broken up after the rats learned of Gorger’s death.
Gregor’s father and Boots heal from the fever and they are preparing to return to the Overland when Luxa frantically tells Gregor that Regalia’s council is going to banish Ares because they think he must have known about Henry’s plot beforehand and, even if he didn’t, he broke his bond to Henry by saving Gregor instead. Basically lose-lose situation for Ares. Gregor rushes to Ares’ defense and to prove that he trusts Ares with his life he runs over to Ares and clumsily begins the bonding swearing. Oh, love it! Gregor saves Ares from banishment and they are now forever bonded as I am now bonded to this series.
Gregor, his dad, and Boots leave the Underland but not before Luxa makes a passing reference to a second prophecy, The Prophecy of Bane (second book here we come!). As Gregor, in a panic, asks whether the second prophecy involves him, Vikus rushes them out before Luxa can answer. They return to New York through a portal that ends up in the middle of Central Park. They make their way back home in the middle of the night and the book ends as they enter into their apartment where Gregor’s mom is sitting forlornly at the kitchen table.
Oh man Collins sure knows how to end with a cliffhanger! I’m telling you, this is better than Hunger Games and Gregor totally beats Katniss as a worthy lead character. In fact, I enjoyed all of the characters here including the cheerful and pooping Boots, the haughty and temperamental Luxa, and the sarcastic and surly Ripred. I also think this is better than a lot of other recent series, many of which can seem too forced and contrived in their efforts to sound modern and have characters that disappoint (*ahem* Percy Jackson *cough*). The Gregor series is in its own strange and timeless world, with real emotions and real heart. This book is very well paced and flies by real quickly. While at first I thought this book was geared more for younger kids, I think it has some more mature themes than you'd expect. And I definitely think this can be enjoyed by adults as well.
Now I know that some of you may may be anti-talking animals (or anti-roach like me) or hear some of the elements of this story and think it’s weird, dorky, or similar to other series, but seriously you MUST read this. Read at least the first one and see what you think about it. Soon you won’t even realize that the characters you’re reading about are really giant talking roaches and bats. Soon you’ll be thoroughly engrossed in this strange new world. And soon your heart will jump every time you hear these endearing characters salute each other during the best and and worst times (“Fly you high!”).
Where to find the Gregor the Overlander?
Go to your local book store or library!
2 comments:
I read the book and it was really good
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