  | Ferryman (Ferryman) Author: McFall, Claire | |
| Price: $23.28 | ||
Summary:
When Dylan wakes up after her train has crashed, she thinks she has survived unscathed. But she couldn't be more mistaken: the bleak landscape around her isn't Scotland, it's a wasteland-a terrain somehow shaped by her own feelings and fears, a border to whatever awaits her in the afterlife. And the stranger sitting by the train track isn't an ordinary teenage boy. Tristan is a Ferryman, tasked with guiding Dylan's soul safely across the treacherous landscape filled with ravenous wraiths who want to eat her soul before she arrives at her final resting place.
| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: UG Reading Level: 5.70 Points: 14.0 Quiz: 516556 |
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (09/01/21)
School Library Journal (11/01/21)
Booklist (09/15/21)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (A) (00/10/21)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 09/15/2021 What happens after we die? This atmospheric, romantic Scottish fantasy offers an intriguing answer. Fifteen-year-old Dylan is traveling from Glasgow to Aberdeen for a weekend with her estranged father when her train crashes. Dylan manages to get out, expecting to encounter emergency personnel. But she finds only a teenage boy, who convinces her to follow him. The two walk for miles through desolate, deserted countryside as Tristan explains that Dylan died in the crash. He is a Ferryman, tasked with accompanying souls on their journey across the wasteland to the other side. And it is a perilous journey—darkness brings wraiths and demons, forcing them to shelter in safe houses each night. Along the way, they fall in love. Tristan knows their love is hopeless, but Dylan is determined to find a way to release Tristan from his obligation. It will require courage and sacrifice, and the terror of facing the wasteland alone. Adding touches of mystery and horror as she goes, McFall reimagines Charon of Greek mythology in this gentle, engrossing love story. - Copyright 2021 Booklist.
School Library Journal - 11/01/2021 Gr 9 Up—After she pulls herself from a train crash, Scottish teenager Dylan finds herself in an eerie wilderness, alone except for the mysterious, handsome Tristan, whom she feels compelled to follow. But has Dylan truly survived the crash unharmed? And where is Tristan leading her? Beyond an imaginative rendering of the afterlife, McFall's work is a scrupulously exact rendering of a particular type of melodramatic teenage romantic fantasy, which will delight or aggravate readers according to their mood. The fantasy is that the unexceptional heroine somehow accrues the everlasting love and devotion of an exceptional hero. In this better-written version of the Twilight Bella-Edward dynamic, Tristan is ageless where Dylan is young, strong when she is weak, knowledgeable where she is naive. More positively, Tristan pushes Dylan to be resilient and to become independent of him, even as he craves her attention and the space she makes for him to define himself apart from his immortal role as a shepherd of the dead. While Tristan initially seems to overestimate Dylan's special empathy (Would she be so interested in him if he weren't hot?), Dylan's love inspires her to grow in physical, moral, and emotional strength. Just what readers might learn about functional human relationships is up for debate. However, McFall's depiction of the protagonists' hunger to be loved, Dylan's awkward self-consciousness about her body, and her burgeoning attraction to Tristan is meticulous, excruciating, and believable. VERDICT An escapist romance of limitless love across boundaries of life and death.—Katherine Magyarody, Texas A&M Univ., College Station - Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
