4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hole in the Sky, April 14, 2004
The novel Hole in the Sky, written by Pete Hautman, takes place in 2028 in Arizona. A raging flu virus has wiped out almost all of Earth's population. A boy named Ceej, his sister Harryette, and his uncle live in an abandoned hotel next to the Grand Canyon until one day when a tribe of flu survivors attack a nearby settlement. Someone must go work the dam, otherwise it will break and the canyon will flood. Ceej and his friend Tim are left alone at the hotel. They wait for days but no one returns for them.
Ceej and Tim must now rescue Harryette, but on the way they meet a Hopi girl named Isabella who tells them of a sacred place called the Sipapuni where they can escape their flu-infected world. The Sipapuni is a hole in the ground in one world and a hole in the sky in another. Bella is strange and mysterious but intent on reaching her second world. It is hard to believe in such a thing, but it seems as if Ceej is falling for it even if Tim is not. Bella decides to aid them on their search, putting aside her desire to raech the Sipapuni as soon as possible.
The four teenagers are all forced to choose a path. Will Harryette return to Ceej and Tim? Will Tim believe in the Sipapuni or will he choose to stay in the world he knows and trusts? Will Ceej follow Bella in to the Sipapuni, if it even exists? And ultimatly, will they survived this roving, dangerous, trek?
This book was very intruiging and there wasn't ever a dull moment. It has an interesting plot and the way the flu was spread is very believable. The characters seem so real and the lonely world Pete Hautman has created seems so futuristic. This book gave me the chills because 2028 isn't that far away and it is possible for this kind of thing to happen. Overall this book was excellent and I would suggest it to anyone who was looking for something with a strange but exciting twist.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Holey schmoley, March 29, 2004
Ah, there's nothing like a good disease-based post-apocalyptic story. Author Pete Hautman has over the years been slowly but surely making a name for himself amongst the juveniles and teens of the world. In this tale written long before the haunting "Mr. Was" and National Book Award winning, "Godless", Hautman takes a classic idea (a plague destroys most of the population of the world) and gives it a couple fancy twists. The book remains relatively unknown, but with Hautman's growing reputation that may not be the case for long.
Split into four parts amongst four young protagonists, this is a story about the end of an old world, and the birth of a new. The bulk of the narration in this tale is given to Ceej. Living with his sister and his uncle just beside the Grand Canyon, Ceej gets occasional visits from his friend Tim and Tim's father. The book is occasionally interrupted by small passages from "A Recent History of the Human Race" (copyright 2038) which helpfully explains how the plague started and how life after its appearance adjusted accordingly. This is lovely conceit and saves the narrators from explaining details that they themselves wouldn't realistically be discussing with the reader. When Ceej's uncle and Tim's father decide to take a trip to a nearby dam so as to prevent a natural disaster, the two go missing. Logically, it's up to our intrepid heroes to try and save them. And the most perilous danger facing these hardy teens is a band of survivors of the flu (which renders anyone who's lived through it hairless and slightly altered) called the Kinka who've become a dangerous and violent cult, threatening our heroes' actions at every turn.
The plot that I have just described is a really good one. There's a lot of well thought out details involved and I was delighted to find myself really enjoying it just about until we meet the Hopi girl. Suddenly the book swerves from science fiction into fantasy. Ceej and Tim run across Bella, a girl in the woods who's been surviving on her own with little effort. Bella is searching for the Sipapuni a (and I'm quoting the book's jacket on this one), "mystical portal that the Hopi believe leads to another world". That's all fine n' dandy, but I found the character of Bella somewhat stereotypical and needless. She could have been an excellent foil for the other characters. Instead, she's rendered rather two-dimensional. Bella has lived much of her life as any normal kid. Yet when we meet her in the story she seems, amongst other things, incapable of conjunctions. While most of the characters speak without affectation, Bella has a halting overly formal speech that just rubbed me the wrong way. On top of that, she's a guide to the Sipapuni, a master of healing, has a way with animals, and speaks regularly with her grandfather (deceased). You just want to ask Hautman why he decided to write such a stiff caricature of a Native American. Why didn't he let Bella be a realistic person? Why is she placed in that long tradition of stereotypical "wise Indian" parts that have been around as long as "The Last of the Mohicans"? I found Hautman's choice to display Bella in this way needless. But hey. That's just me.
Apart from Bella, the writing falters when our characters start concentrating on the mystical Sipapuni; a land without disease. Harryette, Ceej's sister, is a deaf mute and a survivor of the disease. Hautman makes numerous references to the fact that Harryette can't hear things going on. Fast forward to the end of the story where Harryette twice miraculously recovers her hearing. Is this a miracle of desert life? No, it's the book momentarily forgetting that Harryette is deaf. Hence Harryette, "Faintly, in the distance", heard Bella cough. Later when Harryette and Tim are climbing down a steep crevice, "A few minutes later I heard his voice". Sloppy writing, heck. Sloppy editing. On top of that we've the suddenly fantastical element of the Sipapuni, standing at odds with the wonderfully science-fictionist feel of the rest of the book.
The finale of this story is open-ended, which is fine. It does certainly stare you in the face and seem to scream "SEQUEL!!!" in your ear, but so far fans of the book have been disappointed in that respect. As it is, it stands well enough on its own. On the whole, it's a fun book. I just wish it could have been rewritten a little to avoid mistakes, stereotypes, and shifts in genre. But if you're looking for a great tale of future woe, you could not do much better than this story.
This is the review (with some minor changes) as I wrote it way back in March of 2004. In 2005 author Paul Hautman contacted me and let me know that I'd been a bit on the sloppy side and had screwed up my facts about the book. I print his points on the matter here. If you would like a balanced view of "A Hole In the Sky", then please read Mr. Hautman's counterpoints as follow. When I write that the book conveniently forgets that Harrryette is without hearing, Mr. Hautman writes that:
"Harryette is not deaf, a point which is made clear (to most readers) earlier in the book. She hears just fine, but she is unable to process language--a condition well-known to medical science. I never suggest that Harryette 'can't hear things going on'".
To my point that the book switches gears from science fiction to fantasy, Mr. Hautman writes:
"There are no fantasy elements in this book. You have chosen to interpret the Sipapuni as fantasy. It is not. The Sipapuni is a real place, sacred to modern Hopi, many of whom still believe that it is--or once was--a portal to another world. Understand that all four POV characters in 'Hole' are unreliable narrators. Just because a character believes something fantastical does not make a book a 'fantasy.' I would call the book straightforward science fiction with a suggestion of mysticism".
In response to Mr. Hautman's points I suggested that I add his rebuttal to this review, which I have. I hope that this will give the readers a view of "Hole In the Sky" that they might not have gotten otherwise. Whether you love the book or hate it, I think that it should be clear from this review that this is a book worth discussing with others. It is in many ways an ideal teen bookgroup book (if you happen to have access to a teen bookgroup, of course). So read the book. I promise you that it is anything but dull.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book, September 28, 2002
we read this book in school aswell, but in 8th gade. it was a very interesting book. And seeing as how i live in AZ, it made me want to go read it at the grand cayon (the setting of the story). It's got some interesting people, and ideas. A killer flu has spred and most everyone dies, but there are surviours, they loose something though (like they'r hearing or the abliaty to speek).
we had the aouther viset us in class as well, and to hear what he had to say about the book and answer our quetions was great!! ^^ (thanx mrs. wingert!) READ the book!! trust me u'll like it ! ^^
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