Book Recommendations: If You Liked That, You’ll Love This #2

I just wanna start this post by quickly saying that I am over the moon to find out I’m gonna be graduating from Royal Holloway with a 2:1 in BA Hons English! So that’s all my stressing over and done with and I have to say it is a huge relief. Now just to become the next JK Rowling and earn my millions…

Anyway, this post is another ‘If you liked that, you’ll love this’. In the same vein as the last post, my recommendation is Sci-Fi/Apocalyptic. So, without further ado:

If you liked Never Let Me Go or Our Endless Numbered Days, you’ll love The Ship

It’s probably about a year and a half since I read The Ship by Antonia Honeywell. There are bits of the plot I’ve forgotten, but other parts have stayed with me. It’s a bleak and mysterious novel, characterised by the innocence and curiosity of a young girl growing up in a harrowing world, much like Peggy in the forest with her father, and Kathy, Tommy and Ruth in their dystopian boarding school. The protagonists in all three novels are forced to make their own way in life, carving a path for themselves in a treacherous landscape.

Lalla in The Ship draws comparisons especially with Peggy in Our Endless Numbered Days. We meet them as children and watch them attempt to traverse adolescence themselves; both inhabit a harsh, dying world; and both have overbearing father’s with a God complex. You can also find my review for Our Endless Numbered Days right here on my blog.

I loved The Ship when I read it and struggled to put it down. The same can be said for Never Let Me Go and Our Endless Numbered Days. And, like both those novels, The Ship has an excellent twist. It’s stark, lyrical and chilling. There’s also romance, but it’s not cheesy and it doesn’t overpower the plot.

So, here’s the synopsis of The Ship:

WELCOME TO LONDON
BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Oxford Street burned for three weeks. The British Museum is occupied by ragtag survivors. The Regent’s Park camps have been bombed. The Nazareth Act has come into force. If you can’t produce your identity card, you don’t exist.

Lalla, sixteen, has grown up sheltered from the new reality by her visionary father, Michael Paul. But now the chaos has reached their doorstep. Michael has promised to save them. His escape route is a ship big enough to save five hundred people. But only the worthy will be chosen.

Once on board, as day follows identical day, Lalla’s unease grows. Where are they going? What does her father really want?

WHAT IS THE PRICE OF SALVATION?

If you liked Never Let Me Go or Our Endless Numbered Days, I really can’t recommend The Ship enough to fill the hole those books may have left in your life (I know Never Let Me Go definitely left a hole in mine).

Do you agree with my recommendation? Have you read The Ship? Let me know in the comments below!

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