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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Subversive Cult Classic, July 9, 2003
The Borribles is a truly subversive piece of children's literature. The trilogy takes all the epic fantasy elements of Tolkien: adventure, clansmanship, codes of honour, and inverts them against a backdrop of urban decay and social entropy. Borribles are children who run away from home, scavenge for food and would live forever were it not for the adult world's constant attempts at dragging them jealously back into the madness of workaday mortality. De Larrabeiti is obsessed with the geography of a London that he depicts as a city of near total squalor. The Thames is black and cholera ridden, warehouses crumble, schools lay in ruins and mindless commuters shuffle blindly to work each morning whilst the wily Borribles steal fruit from markets, carry catapults for protection and attempt to live outside of the rat-race. As the story progresses, so does Larrabeiti's vision, shifting from the relatively whimsical sparring of rival subhuman groups -Borribles versus the strange, rat-like Rumbles- to a more serious depiction of a highly moral youth culture where money is an evil temptation, corroding the Borribles' scruffy, communal utopia, forcing them out of hiding and into battle with the adult world; a world teaming with sadistic policemen, hysterical civilians and degenerate alcoholic child-snatchers. A world where the only friendly adults are tramps, wasters and circus freaks. Not hard to see then, why the books never made it onto school reading lists. Yet the characterisation is mature and moving, the plotline ingenious and thrilling. But perhaps most impressive of all is the whole Borrible mythology: a coherent world complete with proverbs, songs, rules, lore and ethical codes, thriving beneath the grimy, menacing mess of modern London. Arguably one of the greatest works of children's fiction and almost certainly the darkest and most morally ambiguous, The Borribles is a fantasy saga ripe for comic-strip and film adaptation, yet it appears to have slipped into near obscurity. Join the cult and treat yourself to a copy, whatever your age.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It captured my imagination, December 18, 2005
This review is from: The Borribles Go For Broke (Borrible Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)
Borribles are runaway children who don't want to grow up. They get their names from adventures. But the greatest adventure is The Great Rumble Hunt.After a note that gets passed to Charlotte about a horse that saved their life during the Great Rumble Hunt, Charlotte gets together with the rest of the Hunt members and tries to save the horse. When things go terribly wrong and they end up in Wendle territory, warrior borribles that would love to kill them, their only hope is to trust a borrible that was a Wendle. Will the borribles ever make it out alive??
This book was a very good book. It was really tense for me and there was always action so it kept me reading. There was a big plot that was unraveling and I tried to guess it but it was very hard because of dips and turns. The author wrote very well and it captured my imagination. I wish to see pictures of the borribles because it is hard to imagine them.
Reviewed by a student reviewer for Flamingnet Book Reviews
www.flamingnet.com
Preteen, teen, and young adult book reviews and recommendations
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great Fantasy novel that can be relived over and over!!, August 10, 1999
I read this book close to 20 years ago and it stands as one of my all time favorites! Some of the characters reveal some of the same personality traits as some of the friends that I shared the book with.
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