Ryland's Footsteps

by Sally Prue

Rye's life changes when his father is appointed as Governor of one of the new penal colonies. With his parents, he moves to the island, where he expects to be the only child among colony officials, prisoners, and offlanders (the native peoples of the region). However there are two other children Kris, who is the son of the offlander chief, and Stefanie, daughter of one of the prisoners. The three become uneasy friends, despite their parents' very different Rye's father is destroying the land through his drive to modernize; Kris's father is desperate to maintain the old ways; Stefanie's father is brewing revolution. With a wide scope and a range of comic and quirky characters, the book has something of the feel of Holes by Louis Sachar, or of the film Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? It deals with the three children realizing they don't have to follow in their parents' footsteps, and tells the story of how they bring the adults closer together and find a way forward for all the people of the island.

Genres: Fantasy

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2004

Reviews

[Sophie-Leigh Hunter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I truly hoped I would love this book after holding onto it for so long but honestly the writing was very choppy and there wasn't really any chance to really get to know the characters any further than surface level.
There was a twist but no real build up or resolution.
Overall the book was quite confusing but you can see where the author was trying to go, it had alot of potential to be good but for me it was all just quite bland.

[Zahirah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise but I think the whole book was rushed. 3.5⭐️

[Renee · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book starts out in poor representation of the stream-of-consciousness style. It was very hard to determine time period and location (was it even Earth?). I can only assume this was done on purpose, but it was, nonetheless, irritating. It was one of the strangest books I've ever read. I kept holding on waiting for it to turn into something cool and it never did.