Declaration [Hardcover]

Gemma Malley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 2007

Anna Covey is a 'surplus'. She should not have been born. In a society in which aging is no longer feared, and death is no longer an inevitability, children are an abomination. Like all surpluses, Anna is living in Grange Hall and learning how to make amends for the selfish act her parents committed in having her. She is quietly accepting of her fate until, one day, a new inmate arrives. Anna's life is thrown into chaos. But is she brave enough to believe this mysterious boy? This is a tense and utterly compelling story about a society behind a wall, and the way in which two young people take the chance of breaking free.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Significant Seven, October 2007: I've seen a wave of new young adult novels come across my desk this fall, and among them Gemma Malley's The Declaration has captivated me the most. We meet Malley's heroine, Anna, in a society that's unraveling. One hundred or so years earlier, "Longevity," a new drug granting immortality, took the world by storm, only to lead to an untenable swell in population. Anyone who wants to live forever in this brave new world must agree by law not to have children (thus the eponymous declaration) ... or else. Anna is a "Surplus," a fallout of this decree who ekes out a stark existence (in a neo -Dickensian outpost known as Grange Hall) with the hope of becoming a Valuable Asset to the adults immortal. However, with the arrival of a new Surplus, Peter, who's lived on the Outside his whole life, she discovers a path to the life she might have lived. A world in which children struggle against the adults in charge isn't a new concept, but Malley gives it a provocative twist in a debut that echoes Margaret Atwood, Aldous Huxley, and--most recently--Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go as it explores what happens when you tangle with reproductive power. --Anne Bartholomew

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Review

'Poignant, thought-provoking ... Sharing the visionary quality of books such as 'The Handmaid's Tale' and 'How I Live Now', The Declaration is one of those rare books that changes the way you see the world.' Publishing News 'Stunning, thought-provoking and a book that genuinely stays with you' The Bookseller (Teenage Highlights)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Childrens Books (September 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0747587752
• ISBN-13: 978-0747587750
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,901,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, October 1, 2007

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Declaration (Hardcover)

C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia Boxed Set, once wrote that there are three ways of writing for children. The first is to cater to what children want (but people seldom know what they want and this usually ends badly), the second develops from a story told to a specific child (Lewis Carrol's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Signet Classics), for instance), and the third is that it is simply the best art form to convey the story.

Gemma Malley's debut young adult novel, THE DECLARATION, is of the last category.

I am making this point because while THE DECLARATION involves two teenagers, fourteen-year-old Anna and fifteen-year-old Peter, it never feels aimed towards the teen audience Therefore it is categorized as a young adult novel by the age of its narrators rather than its content and this, I believe, will give it an enduring quality. C. S. Lewis wrote, "Where the children's story is simply the right form for what the author has to say, then of course readers who want to hear that will read the story or reread it at any age."

THE DECLARATION opens in the year 2140, and people have conquered death in the form of Longevity drugs. With limited food and fuel resources, waste has become a serious crime and the worst crime of all is having a child. Anna is one of these children. She is housed at Grange Hall where she and other Surpluses are taught that the most they can ever hope for is a harsh life of servitude to make amends for their existence.

Anna is well on her way to becoming a Valuable Asset when Peter arrives at Grange Hall. He challenges everything she has learned by arguing that people who take Longevity are the real criminals and perversions of nature, not the young. He also claims that he knows her parents and that they want her back. Peter is strange and new, but is he enough to make her risk everything to escape with him?

Unlike some novels that use characters, plot, and setting as a vehicle to drive home a message, Gemma Malley never lets the moral and ethical questions she raises detract from the actual story. The characters are well drawn and identifiable, and the language is simple and unpretentious. THE DECLARATION is not without flaws, especially the failure to explain or integrate Mrs. Pincent's involvement with the black market product Longevity+ into a major plotline, but this lends mystery and excitement for a sequel.

Even though it contains a handful of science fiction and young adult hallmarks, such as a utopia/dystopia setting, wonder drugs, and finding and defining oneself, it cannot be dismissed as merely a youthful 1984 knockoff. It is mostly a book about people, fear, and loss. Themes that are, if not always, exquisitely accessible in this age.

Five Stars and a Gold Award.

Reviewed by: Natalie Tsang

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning Societal Examination-Courtesy Bookwyrm Chrysalis, October 10, 2007

By 

Cassandra Richoux "http://yafantasy.com" (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Declaration (Hardcover)

What if there was a drug that allowed you to be immortal? Would you take it, even if it meant you would not be allowed to have children? Would you opt out, even if that put you in the tiny minority? How would society deal? How would they treat those children who are still born to parents that are immortal? How would a society of adults over the age of 40 react to youngsters? How would they justify living forever?

Surplus Anna lives in the Surplus Hall, the "home" for those that Mother Nature doesn't want. Those children who are born outside of The Declaration. Created by selfish Legal parents, who are now in prison for their crimes. But Anna is a Valuable Asset and therefore might make something of herself someday, as a good servant in a good household.

That is, until Peter enters her life and challenges everything that she has known to be true. He tells her that her parents really did love her and wanted her. That they sent him to find her. That she's not unwanted and that they aren't the surplus population, that instead it is the adults who have outlived their welcome on the planet.

The Declaration was a stunning book that I just couldn't put down. I was never quite sure how it was going to end, yet when I got to the ending, it was exactly how it should have been. I enjoy societal challenges and questions, so I found this book to be a great exercise in what ifs. How would a society truly react to immortality? It would be tough, there would have to be population control and energy control, and I thought Malley did a great job of bringing up and answering these questions.

I was left with some questions by the end of the book. I wasn't quite sure how long people had been able to be immortal for and why they had to make the decision at the age of 16. Part of the problem, of course, is that the narrating character isn't privy to this knowledge and it didn't really bother me as I read. Malley did address why they didn't just put in birth control drugs with the longevity drug, but I also wondered why they didn't sterilize people who signed The Declaration. My personal theory is that, while they may call these children Surpluses, they also need them for the slave labor they provide. When people live forever, doing menial tasks becomes even less appealing.

Overall, this book is a great discussion starter, the kind of book that you might be forced to read for school, but actually enjoy. If I had kids I would probably put this on their required reading list, just because it challenges you to think about life in a new way. The question of immortality is a hard question. I really want to have kids one day, I love working with kids and enjoy the challenge of shaping young minds. Still, the idea of death terrifies me, and I think if I could still have one child, this would be an easy decision. But to never have a child and instead live forever? That's not a question I can come up with an easy answer to. And in the book, it's a question that people are asked at the age of 16 - that's when they have to decide if they are in or out. Which doesn't exactly make sense though, since the history in the book seems to say that society realized very quickly that even one child was too many. Maybe it refers to the people who were children when the drug first entered mainstream usage.

A great aspect of the immortality drug was that people may stay alive, but they don't stay young exactly - their skin still sags and plastic surgery is still a necessity. Instead, the organs seem to stay young, but the outer shell is aging. Also, Malley addressed nicely how afraid of death immortality has made people. One character helps out Anna with her eventual escape, but immediately flips when the Catchers (people who bring in the Surplus children) threaten her with death. The idea of death becomes even scarier when you no longer think that it will happen one day.

Back to the story, though. Anna is an interesting character and you see the world through her changing eyes. She starts out basically a brainwashed slave. Through Peter's interactions, though, she makes her first friend, falls in love for the first time, and experiences other firsts, some as simple as having her mother hug her for the first time (well, that she remembers). Anna is a good character to see this world through and is a great medium for Malley to tell the story.

I do wonder if the story is really over though, and I hope Malley will revisit this world. It felt like Anna's tale could be considered over, but there is obviously a lot of change that will be coming to this world in the near future. There were other story threads left unfinished and I'm curious to know will happen in the near future, as the world seems to be on the edge of revolution.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, but I didn't love it, July 12, 2011

By 

C. Klapper "CK2" (Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Declaration (Paperback)

This one started out great for me. Interesting premise and a character I wanted to get to know. But I felt like I couldn't really get into this one as much as I would have liked. Many of the characters seemed sort of flat, and I felt like the romance that developed between the two main characters wasn't realistic. It's still a decent read, but not as engrossing as I expected. I'm not sure if I'll read the next book in the series or not.