I picked up this book because there was a quote on the cover by Orsen Scott Card. Something about Barnes being the next big thing. Now I’m not sure what Card’s been smoking lately because this book was pretty consistently annoying and unsatisfying throughout.
The story is told by and about a teenage girl, Melpomme, who lives on the Earth orbiting spaceship the Flying Dutchman. She is coming of age in a near future where the Earth is in shambles and all her preconceptions about they way life works are starting to fall apart. A new student, a groundhog (earth kid) has come up to join her class and Melpomme’s life is flipped upside down. Whatever will she do??? The story actually sounds like it might be ok I suppose, but really it isn’t. I’d like to think that it is intended as a children’s book, well a teenage book, but I really don’t think so. The most significant problem with this book rises from the fact that it is told by a 14 year old kid. That might not be so bad if the author had any legitimate voice, but it’s written like a 14 year old actually did it. The story is confusing, immature, and never really engages in any way.
The characters are the other major problem. I understand that this is supposed to be the future and all but I just didn’t believe that these were real people. These kids do things that people just don’t do. I really didn’t believe any of it. On a final note, this book was only 215 pages long, but it took me a long time to read, I just wasn’t interested by it. The only redeeming elements in the book were the scenes of Aerocross (sp?) (a zero g lacrosse-like game), and some of the scenes developing another lead character Randy. So in the end, I’d have to say avoid “Orbital Resonance” it’s just not worth it.
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