Dr. Franklin's Island, by Ann Halam
Ann Halam is the YA pen name of adult sf author Gwyneth Jones. I have never been able to penetrate more than three pages into any of her adult novels, which annoys me as the premises usually sound quite interesting. The unvarnished prose of her YA novels is far more to my taste, though their tones vary between rescued from "too depressing to read" by relatively hopeful protagonists and relatively upbeat endings (this book, Siberia) and awesomely depressing (Taylor Five, a semi-finalist in the awesomely depressing awards.)
Dr. Frankin's Island is a riff on The Island of Doctor Moreau. (I read the book of the latter and vaguely remember it as a fun old-fashioned adventure. I also saw the movie, fell asleep on my friend's floor, and kept waking up, seeing Marlon Brando in increasingly bizarre headgear (a bouquet of flowers, a troupe of stuffed monkeys, etc), and was slightly dismayed when my friend later confirmed that no, I had not dreamed the bit where Marlon Brando wore a bucket on his head.)
Halam's take has three teenagers get plane-wrecked on an island, and then captured and, in quite horrifying detail, transformed into animal-human hybrids. The teenagers' terror and despair are vividly depicted, as is their endurance and, later, existence in an animal form. The friendship between the heroine, a Jamaican-American or Jamaican-British girl who is transformed into an aquatic form, and her companion who is given flight, is convincing and lovely. But Halam's protagonists are often so absolutely trapped by their circumstances that action is either impossible or futile. This makes her books painful to read, even if her heroines do eventually triumph, as they do here.
I'm happy to read her books once-- they're very gripping and smart-- but I don't think I'd ever re-read them.
Dr. Frankin's Island is a riff on The Island of Doctor Moreau. (I read the book of the latter and vaguely remember it as a fun old-fashioned adventure. I also saw the movie, fell asleep on my friend's floor, and kept waking up, seeing Marlon Brando in increasingly bizarre headgear (a bouquet of flowers, a troupe of stuffed monkeys, etc), and was slightly dismayed when my friend later confirmed that no, I had not dreamed the bit where Marlon Brando wore a bucket on his head.)
Halam's take has three teenagers get plane-wrecked on an island, and then captured and, in quite horrifying detail, transformed into animal-human hybrids. The teenagers' terror and despair are vividly depicted, as is their endurance and, later, existence in an animal form. The friendship between the heroine, a Jamaican-American or Jamaican-British girl who is transformed into an aquatic form, and her companion who is given flight, is convincing and lovely. But Halam's protagonists are often so absolutely trapped by their circumstances that action is either impossible or futile. This makes her books painful to read, even if her heroines do eventually triumph, as they do here.
I'm happy to read her books once-- they're very gripping and smart-- but I don't think I'd ever re-read them.