Book Reviews and More: Wild Life - Corinna Turner

Tuesday, 2 November 2021

Wild Life - Corinna Turner - unSPARKed Book 5

Wild Life

unSPARKed Book 5

Corinna Turner
Unseen Books

ISBN 9781910806326

eISBN 9781910806333

ASIN B09GYVPS3P

With the reading of this story I have now read books in the unSPARKed series 20 times. I started reading them myself. Then later reading them to my son, once he showed interest in them. And now my son is rereading me the whole series. I hope someday my youngest daughter will show interest and will be happy to read them all again with her. Because we both love them so much I picked up the eBook of this one for me, and a physical copy for my son. We love all of the books in this series. When this book released my son was reading me A Very Jurassic Christmas. He wanted to finish and then read this one together. I could not hold out after a week I broke down and read this one afternoon over a couple of mugs of coffee, sitting in the autumn sun on the back patio. Wow! An amazing story in a FANtastic series.

The series currently is comprised of 5 main novels this being the fifth. Four prequel stories, 1 yet to be published, A Mom With Blue Feathers, and a story set 59 years before the main series. But this is the first whole store where the two different story arc’s have finally merged. I have said it before and I say it again that these are great reads for tweens, teens and adults. I describe the series as a mashup of Mad Max, Lost World, and Jurassic Park.

unSPARKed is a series set in a not-too-distant future. Dinosaurs once again roam the earth. Just because a scientist could do something, did not mean they should have done it. Most people live SPARKed, in cities with walls and electrified fences. There are two groups of people who live unSPARKed, farmers who have electric fences around their farms and live in community with their close neighbours. And Hunters who live most of the time out on the road or off road in HabVI’s Habitat Vehicles.

The description of this volume is:

“Life out here ain’t a game. As you’ll learn the first time something goes south.

Having avoided being separated and taken in-city, there’s still a chance Darryl and Harry can rescue their father from his kidnappers. As they settle into their new life as young hunter Joshua’s assistants, Josh can teach them how to handle the wildlife—but worse threats loom on the horizon.”

The story is told in a series of first person narrative chapters. And there is a wide range in chapter length. The breakdown is

Darryl 9

Harry 6

Joshua 6

But I believe Harry’s 6 chapters are about half the length of Joshua’s. There could have been a chapter by Father Ben but I will get to that in a sentence or two. Our main characters are:

Darryl: 16 and a half years old. Raised on a farm. Does not enjoy the city. And Harry’s big sister. Devote Catholic. Deep faith. A brave strong young woman.

Harry: Darryl’s younger brother. Eager to learn. A farm boy at heart. A youngster of faith, and strong work eithic.

Joshua: He was raised unSPARKed, lived his whole life from the day he was born in a Habitat Vehicle. He was raised by his father and uncle. Both deceased. Can’t stand being in city. Saved Darryl and Harry after a car accident where they lost their new step mom.

Father Ben: Father Benedict was once a city priest, but trained to be a rural priest. Travels in a SOS van, A black van with a big white cross on it. Looks after a rural parish. Traveling from farm to farm. Darryl and Harry are his parishioners. Had an encounter with Josh’s uncle Z and father 19 years ago, and more recently with Joshua and Uncle Z and a Vi full of dino’s.

A city social working was going to take Darryl and her brother in city and likely cause them to be separated from each other. At least for the year and a half until Darryl turned 18. So they snuck away to work with Joshua as his assistants. They have three reasons for wanting to do this. First they stay together. Second they stay out city. And third they can try and find a way to rescue or ransom their kidnapped father. All of which they cannot do in city.

This instalment in the story focuses mostly around the Joshua training the other two for life in a Vi and life hunting. They are also trying to get the word out to make contact with the kidnappers. They have the support and help from another Vi crew that Josh knows. And they reach out to Father Ben, which does not start off exactly as expected. But to find out how and why you will need to read this excellent story.

This is another excellent instalment in an amazing series. But be warned you will be desperate for the 2 stories announced in the series. These are my son’s favourite fiction books. He loves them tremendously. We have read all the previous ones at least twice together. And he is giving a full set to his school library. And this is one of the best in the series. I highly recommend this series, and to be honest any book written by Turner!

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2021 Catholic Reading Plan!