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This is hands-down one of the worst books I have ever read. Pedantic in the extreme, nonsensically plotted and full of so many holes it looks like lace. And the writing is abysmal. Wait, what's worse than abysmal? Right, this book.A plague has wiped out all the adults, so they are freshly dead. Except there aren't any bodies. Not one. They seem to have vanished, poof. Electricity doesn't work and there's no water to any of the houses, but there aren't any sanitation discussions. Apparently the p...
I read this book in elementary school and loved it. Even the premise for this book is really unique. Children often dream of a world without parents and without rules, but this book puts an entirely different spin on that sort of world by making it dangerous and scary.Lisa was such a powerful character, and I really enjoyed how she evolved as a leader. At the same time, we saw the softer side to her when she interacted with her younger sibling.I won't lie - there are definitely parts to this boo...
I read this in junior high. I can't remember a lot of details, just certain specific incidents come back to me at different times. Sometimes I think - remember when that girl in that book went to the grocery store and was glad the gang members hadn't taken the medicine, just the potato chips? Or, remember when that girl from that book had to learn to drive and didn't do so badly and was glad there was gas in the car? Then I start to think how hard it would be to start over again when all the adu...
Oh, this book. The eight-year-old me who first discovered it would give it a 5-star rating. Twelve year old me would probably put it at 3. And as an adult, I want to give it a 1. So, I have given it a 2, overall.This book is why I became interested in dystopian fiction. It is also why, as other reviewers have commented, I pass by school buildings and wonder what it'd be like to build a community within them.But it really isn't that good. It's actually poorly written in many ways - the timeline i...
Let me start by saying that I didn't finish this so-called novel -- in fact, I didn't get past chapter 5. I kept thinking to myself that it would get better, but as the plot got rolling the unrealistic elements leaped out even more strongly than before. From page one, I felt the writing was less than acceptable for a published novel. (And when I saw the author's dedication to 'Lisa and Todd' I knew that a large conceit like super-characterizing your own children would lead to many, many others.)...
I've been looking for this book forever. All I could remember is reading an older book about a city where the adults died and the kids had to survive. Finally found it! I checked this book out over and over and over and over and over from the library when I was in middle school. Loved it. Was addicted to it. Finally found it. So happy!
This book is conservative propaganda.I say this (and am writing a review) because I very rarely give books one star--in fact, this is the first one star rating I've ever given, and I've given plenty of books I didn't actually like three stars. But this book takes a nominal message about earning the things you have and turns it into a message about seizing power and refusing to share it with others in a way that promotes a very dangerous ideology.Specific points this books makes:- Sharing is bad
Okay, this is a review with major qualification.I read this first when I was nine, and I loved it. I think I read it along with some other apocalyptic scenarios, and this was also the time I started in on sci fi, so altogether I was looking for adventure. Somehow this book lodged in my mind and I only recently got my hands on it again. And once I did, I burst out laughing: this is a libertarian call to action!I'm much savvier politically than I was at 9 years old, and it's hilarious to realize t...
2021-10-02 I am surprised I have not reviewed this book before, since I love it and it has meant so much to me over the years. But a good friend mentioned that he loved the copy I gave him 25+ years ago and wanted to get a copy for his kids who are 6 & 8 now last night, so I knew I had to write up a little review here.The story is about a group of kids and how they survive after a plague wipes out all adults in their area (Western suburbs of Chicago - or the world?) How the main character plans,...
Do not waste your time on this book (and no, my opinion is not unjustified). The characters were unappealing, the setting was unrealistic, there were many plot holes, the story was boring AND cliché... what more can I say? Let's break it down:So there has been a plague that wipes off all adults. Only those 12 years of age and younger survive. There is no explanation of how this happened. Whatsoever. This makes it hard to believe in the story or have any feelings toward anything at all concerning...
Some stories come around and you can’t help but keep reading them. One of those books is The Girl Who Owned a City by O.T. Nelson. It’s an amazingly descriptive story about a world that is only inhabited by kids. The story starts by 10 year old Lisa, the main character, breaking into a vacant house to steal supplies like food and candles. At first, it just seems like she’s a thief, but you will soon change your mind. She spots a note on the way out written by a father explaining to his sons tha...
[JUVENILE BOOK, Adult Reader]PLOT: Disease has wiped out everyone over age 12. In a small-ish town, a girl named Lisa looks after her little brother, and tries to organize survivors. SAY SOMETHING NICE: Good concept. Probably more impressive when read in the 1970s--IF the reader was age 13 or younger. Some of the cover art choices over the years were good. I believe it was later made into a graphic novel/comic book? DOWNERS: Everything else.JUVIE VERDICT (in 2021): 1.5 stars. YA VERDICT: No.ADUL...
Had a conversation with my mother-in-law this past summer trying to remember books I'd read as a kid, especially dark, post-apocalyptic ones. The Girl Who Owned a City was the one I remembered best -- or at least remembered LIKING best. That and the premise: A virus has killed everyone over the age of twelve, and now these kids in suburban Chicago have to fend for themselves. In the process of locating the book, I learned that its author was a big Ayn Rand follower, and his intent in writing TGW...
I read this book in junior high and I remember hating to read it because it was required but I secretly loved the story. It made me imagine really awesome stories in my head when I read this wondering what would happen if I had to go through something like this. I think about this book sometimes out of the blue and remember it being really intense. I would love to read this again but I don't want to change the way I think or felt about this book when I was younger.
(view spoiler)[Another reviewer says "Explain this: pg. 157 - (last two paragraphs I think) Tom Logan. He asks who did something (don't want to give out a spoiler for this oh so suspenseful book) to Lisa because he wants to "beat his little head in if I ever catch him". Next paragraph. Tom Logan again. He's thinking about how he killed her. Uh, correct me if I'm wrong but if he was looking to find who did this than how could he himself have done it?"I suggest that Tom was trying, in the first, t...
School read, review to come.I read this with one of my students for her instructional level reading group. The premise of the story was fantastic, a plague has killed everyone over the age of 12 and now children have to learn how to survive on their own in a new dark age. But I could not get over all the things that made no effing sense. Where were all the dead bodies? If every single person on the planet over the age of 12 died, did they just disappear? Doubtful because toward the end when Lisa...
I originally read this book back in Grade Seven, (1977-1978) and loved the concept. No parents! I was surprised that the author, Terry Nelson, didn't write any sequels. I see in searching for this book today, another author may have taken the lead from Terry and done just that. This book could have easily gone into a 10 volume set of Lisa's adventures. The Girl who owned a city definitely influenced two of my own books; Castle Lake and Fun City. My character of Alicia Murdock in Castle Lake has
It was interesting to see how people might react if there were no adults around but it was pretty much what I expected. Some would die, some would barely survive, and some would take charge. Kind of predictable, but interesting at the same time.
One day my girlfriend was actually out of the apartment and attending some obligation without dragging me along . In strict accordance with her habits, she continuously suspected I was scampering about with a bevy of well-endowed trollops and expected to come home to our domicile to find it reeking like the summer of 69. In actuality, I spent a large portion of these three glorious hours reading pre-teen literature....I can’t even guess as to when I first read this book but I think it must have
A dismal and hugely overrated experience. We all have a weak spot in our literary preferences, and I have a particular one for post-apocalyptic settings. But while most 'PA' stories smartly take advantage of the thrills found in survivalism and violent conflict, I'm a real sucker for the focus on rebuilding, on the need for organization and structure, and the intricate task of reintroducing it into the world. So I thought I would enjoy "The Girl Who Owned A City", which I'd heard focused on this...
The Girl Who Owned a CityPicture yourself in a world without parents, without TV and other electronics. Now picture yourself looking for food in abanded homes. If you can picture that, than you understand some of Lisa’s life. Lisa is a 10 year old girl whose parents were taken by the plague. Lisa has a 6 year old brother Todd. Lisa has to get food for Todd and her. A problem is that when the plague struck gangs formed immediately. So Lisa has to look in places that haven’t been ransacked already...
The Girl Who Owned A City, by O.T. Nelson, is a Fiction novel in full bounce. This book reminds me of a book called The Class Trip, which shares the theme of loneliness with this book. This book is about a girl named Lisa and her brother Todd. All adults are dead because of a disease that kills everyone over 12. Lisa and Todd, and all the other kids that live on grand Avenue are determined to stay alive during this deadly plague. At first when they're fortress in the neighborhood gets burned dow...
This book was completely terrible. I got it from Value Village because it had a Boris Vallejo cover and it's about a girl who owns a city. How could that not be good? Like most of the other reviewers have said this is a book about a 10 year old girl with the personality of a 35 year old Ayn Rand-loving dad from the 70s who makes the apocalypse into one long long lecture about earning your happiness. When I picked this book up I was amazed I had never heard of it before but now that I've read it
Preachy, preachy, preachy! The book may well have been intended for the middle school set, but it’s written for third-grade reading comprehension. The characters are flat and/or totally out of their minds (I’m talking to about you, Lisa), the story is weak and barely supported, and the plot themes are completely unrealistic. If the author had brought the age of most of the kids up to, say, 15 or 16, the book would have been much more believable, and she could have utilized more dark, adult theme...
Ayn Rand for kids. Preachy, preachy, preachy. "Happiness comes from working for your stuff. Sharing is for chumps. Love thy neighbor is for the weak." I wouldn't mind so much if the writing was good, but it's not. Horrible writing. There is absolutely no showing and only telling. "She was brave," "they were angry," "he felt scared." There has got to be at least three be verbs per line. Bland characters, bland, bland, nonsensical story, boring writing. I wouldn't have finished this book except th...
THIS BOOK IS UNREALISTIC!!!!!!!!! At one point they make a tunnel which should have collapsed because they made it with loose soil. Another time a 12 year old with no medical experience is able to heal a bullet wound in 2 days. They shouldn't have enough food and water to support about 500 kids for a year. UHHHHH!!!!!
I read this book when I was 12. It was great!!! Good read for middle school children
I enjoyed this book because it was based on a dystopian society, which I have stated before is one of my favorite genres. I had this book recommended to me by a friend a while ago and I was excited to have a reason to read it. This book was challenged in Maine schools due to promotion of violence "Including explaining how to make a Molotov cocktail". While I can understand that there is a high level of violence in this novel, I still disagree with the censoring of the book. That being said, I wo...
To learn to survive is the most important goal of every human being to learn to cope with tragedy and to cope with pain and to heal through all of it and use what intelligence you have and use your thinking instead of using violence to come up with a way to survive in a world where everything has been destroyed there's no electricity and there is no running water you have to learn to live by your wits ends like an old times of the pioneers and Indians this is a true story about the Fate that may...
I had to wait three hours in a car repair shop today, so I read a middle years novel that I remember liking as a kid- The Girl Who Owned A City. Oh friends. What a spectacular hate read it is. It’s pure, spiteful, far right propaganda. I remember the story of plague wiping out everyone over 12, and the remaining kids’ efforts to rebuild society, learn skills, and defend their citadel in a war to be exciting and fascinating. The MC, Lisa, was a tough cookie: a natural leader who was smart and cap...