Truancy [Paperback]

Isamu Fukui (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2010

Some kids were rebellious….

In an alternate world, in a nameless totalitarian city, the autocratic Mayor rules the school system with an iron fist. Fighting against the Mayor and his repressive Educators is a group of former students called the Truancy, whose goal is to take down the system by any means possible—at any cost.

Fifteen-year-old Tack is just trying to survive. His days are filled with sadistic teachers, unrelenting schoolwork, and indifferent parents. Things start to look up when he meets Umasi, a mysterious boy who becomes Tack’s mentor.

Then someone close to Tack gets killed in the crossfire between the Educators and the Truants, and he swears vengeance. To achieve his purpose, he abandons his old life and joins the Truancy, looking for an opportunity to confront Zyid, its enigmatic leader. But Tack soon finds himself torn between his desire for revenge and his growing sympathy for the Truants…

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8–10—Tack, 15, lives in a dystopian society where a corrupt government oppresses its citizens, starting when they are students. A group of young resistance fighters called the Truancy violently strikes back against the system. Tack joins the movement after his sister is accidentally killed in a Truancy attack on a government official. His intention is to murder its leader in revenge, but he finds himself drawn into the group's philosophy and is torn between wanting to bring down the government or destroy the ferocious resistance. This hefty novel is not unlike an action movie or video game. It starts fast and barrels on with not one subtle moment. It is full of elaborate, graphic fights. The characters are amazingly skilled in a wide variety of unbelievable ways. Described as "kids" or "children," they are nonetheless portrayed as expert assassins, brilliant tacticians, even world-weary bartenders. Readers are beaten over the head with how evil the government is, how oppressed the students are, how unsympathetic adults are. According to the back cover, the author wrote the book "in one month the summer of his fifteenth year." He shows a lot of promise, but more experience, in life and in writing, might greatly improve his style. While Truancy may be popular with some readers who feel as though adults don't get them and school is oppressing them, it is a strictly additional purchase for robust SF collections.—Geri Diorio, The Ridgefield Library, CT
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

The premise of teens combating an oppressive education system will entice readers to this heavily marketed novel centering on a young martial-arts expert who joins the ruthless Truants to undermine them but becomes caught up in their broader mission. Author Fukui is only 18, and his debut harbors many signs of an author still in high school: his writing can be overwrought, and, despite a pacifistic jacket-flap comment, he lingers so gleefully over the carnage as rebel dropouts plunge swords, snap necks, and throw homemade bombs that the message can’t help but seem a little dilute. Most teens, however, will take the combat scenes in the graphic novel–influenced manner in which they were presumably intended, and many will hear—and embrace—the passionate critique of high-school experience wrapped within the Truants’s battle cry: All kids are branded as a single faceless mass and herded through school like cattle. Recommenders, especially those in school settings, will find themselves torn between teens’ interest and the novel’s focus on violence in an educational context. Grades 8-12. --Jennifer Mattson --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Tor Teen; First Edition edition (February 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765322587
• ISBN-13: 978-0765322586
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,932,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing, Thought Provoking Kick-youknowwhat Adventure, April 21, 2010

By 

Pam Tee "Busy Mom" - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Truancy (Paperback)

I found TRUANCY to be thoughtful and interesting, and sometimes just plain funny-- as when Isamu takes a punch at current events by having the Mayor's staff invent the deadly disease-of-the-week which is fed to The Media every time the Mayor has some problem he wants to hide from the populace.

The plotting was good, and the story unfolds in layers as Tact finds himself first opposing The TRUANCY and then joining it. And I really enjoyed the secondary characters, like Tact's mentor, a boy with almost super-human martial arts abilities.

There's been some criticism of the violence in this book, but most of that comes from people who couldn't finish it. I think perhaps they might have stumbled over the 7th grade vocabulary and had to stop reading. (The accelerated reading number is generic "7" by the way. One of the highest levels I've run across in years of doing reviews.) In the end, it's quite clear that the message is anti-violent.


All-in-all I found TRUANCY to be a fun read. It's not perfect --I thought it was too long-- but it's thought provoking and entertaining. I plan on picking up the prequel sometime later this summer. If you're uncertain try Amazon's look inside.

Oh yeah, one other bit of advice. This book isn't entirely grounded in 'reality' with a big "R". When reading TRUANCY you might want to put on your "Seventh Samurai hat", your Clint Eastwood spagetti western hat, and think of the book more as a graphic-novel without the graphics.

Considerations: Violence, language

pam t~
mom and reviewer
(booksforkids-reviews)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Reality Check of Suffering in the Name of Education, December 28, 2011

By 

Tina Brescanu (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Truancy (Tom Doherty Associates Books) (Hardcover)

Truancy by Isamu Fukui is a releasing read as well as a reality check of suffering in the name of education. This story is based in a fantasy world which makes the story more real, fantasy being a wider angle of truth. The violence is the severe symptom of a diseased city where Education rule and the students of Truancy finally fight back. I understand that the author found it easier to write his story being in school himself but you never forget school whether it was good or bad. I was a rebellious child and the sad state of the education system in the story matched the feelings I had about school. I didn't stay to fight though; I escaped.

Early school leaving does not necessarily lead to criminality. Truancy is an act of bravery; it's also an act of self love. Punishment for truancy in many countries, in the real world, proves that school is not an opportunity, it's an obligation. Thank God for the many countries acknowledging the right of parents to decide on homeschooling/unschooling if that's what a child needs instead of punishing a child that doesn't fit the one and only system to get through the start of life.

This book takes truancy to the next level in a fictional world, but it could be real. If we allowed young people to learn what they want in their own time we would have a better world. No one thrives being forced and although school suits some, it certainly doesn't suit all. If we fully understood the harm done we would release everyone into their own learning, anything else would be imprisonment and that's not what school is about, is it?

This book shows the dark corners of students forced to education in the name of production and paying one's way. It shows that life is not your own at all.

Having read through the reviews for this book, I understand school doesn't leave anyone unaffected, both for and against are entitled to their opinion. I was drawn to the book thanks to the title. I found the writing interesting and engaging. I understood the characters and the plot was good too, but then being an early school leaver, perhaps I'm not properly trained.

Tina Brescanu Author of Warriors of Change: Sentenced to School

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm a teacher and I'd love to use this book in school, May 29, 2008

By 

S. S. Livingston "Radical Teacher" (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Truancy (Tom Doherty Associates Books) (Hardcover)

When I heard an interview with Isamu Fukui on National Public Radio, I was impressed with the reasons that he wrote this book. Many things he said during the interview and the themes in his novel really hit home: school is often the socializing forum for kids. Even though I'm part of the system the radical in me has wanted to blow it up and start over for quite a while. I'm glad that a teenager has had the courage to pen an exaggerated version of how many educators negatively affect their students' moral and self-respect. Thank heavens my summer break has begun because I can not put that book down!