The Divide - Elizabeth Kay

[Mark Robson]

I'd been looking forward to reading The Divide for about a year, but not got around to it. When I finally did get to it, I read it in two nights and wondered why it had taken so long for it to surface to the top of my reading pile.

The Divide is about a young lad called Felix who suffers an incurable heart condition. His parents have tried everything, but are clearly doing everything in their power to help Felix experience as much as possible during his shortened life span. It is on one of these experiential trips when Felix climbs the path to the divide in Costa Rica - the point either side of which water will run into different oceans. Whilst there, Felix passes out and, according to Ironclaw the brazzle (who would be called a griffin in our world), his heart momentarily stopped beating.

The result of this million to one chance is that Felix crosses into another world - a world filled with unusual creatures from myth and legend, and yet others like the worrits (a comic doglike creature whose victims literally die of laughter) which don't seem to have any parallel in our world. Elizabeth paints her fantasy world in bright colours, with wonderful touches of humour on just about every page. I simply couldn't stop turning the pages until my eyes closed from sheer exhaustion at some ungodly hour in the morning. It was a wonderful reading experience.

The main thrust of the story is the quest to find a cure for Felix, but as one might expect this is anything but easy. The sub-text to this remarkable book is an interesting angle on the big multi-national pharmaceutical companies. I won't ruin the story by giving away any more of the plot, but suffice it to say this is a fascinating story that can be read on many levels.

Elizabeth Kay is a masterful storyteller. I've been fortunate to read some great books recently, but I haven't had so much fun reading a YA novel in a long time. If you haven't read this - get a copy soon.