Synopsis:
Xavier Oaks doesn’t particularly want to go to the cabin with his dad and his dad’s pregnant new wife, Nia. But family obligations are family obligations, and it’s only for a short time. So he leaves his mom, his brother, and his other friends behind for a week in the woods. Only… one morning he wakes up and the house isn’t where it was before. It’s like it’s been lifted and placed… somewhere else.
When Xavier, his dad, and Nia go explore, they find they are inside a dome, trapped. And there’s no one else around…
Until, three years later, another family arrives.
Is there any escape? Is there a reason they are stuck where they are? Different people have different answers — and those different answers inexorably lead to tension, strife, and sacrifice.
Review:
Remember March 2020? I know you don’t want to, but bear with me for a bit.
Seemingly overnight, the world changed. We went from an interconnected society, where we could go anywhere, do anything, see whoever we’d like, to…just not.
It was weird. Disorienting. Out of nowhere we had no bearing…no foundation. Some of those we were in lockdown with were not those we would have liked to be stuck with for months at a time. Our entire way of life was upended and changed. What was real? What was the truth? If you left your house, how far could you go? Was it safe?
In the last few years I’ve read a few books that referenced COVID-19 and the pandemic. Of all those books, Best of All Worlds by Kenneth Oppel is the MOST Pandemic book. That’s not to say that it happens in the “Pandemic,” but virtually the entire plot of the book acts as a giant metaphor or allegory for events that transpired in the first couple months to years of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The Young Adult book is told exclusively through the eyes of Xavier Oaks, a teenager who was along for forced family fun time at a cabin by the lake. The next morning, the lake is gone and in its place is a farm ready to be worked. The more that he and his family explore, they find themselves the only inhabitants in a dome — caged by some unknown entity. The book sets up the Oaks family in the first quarter, then brings in the conflict: after three years of being the only four people in the dome, a new family appears.
This is where I can imagine that people are going to have WILDLY different takes on this book, because the Oaks are a family from Canada and are framed as the rational, responsible family that does what they are told in the Lock Down. The new family — the Jacksons — are from Tennessee — and are conspiracy-minded Americans who trust nothing. Because we spent the first part of the book with the Oaks, we know what they know, but to a family that is plopped down in the middle of an impenetrable dome and a family is already there, there are some reasonable doubts to be had.
I’ve liked the Oppel books I’ve read before and this is an easy one to get into and follow the mysteries (not all are answered by the end, which I actually appreciate for a book like this) all the way until the end. The big question the Jackson family brings up is the identity of their captors — are they aliens like the Oaks think, or is it advanced technology harnessed by the government elites on Earth? The metaphors do get a little heavy-handed at times, but the science fiction of this book doesn’t relate to anything that the humans do or believe. I’ve met people who believe many of the things that Riley Jackson does and no matter how much you talk to them, they are obstinate and stuck in their own heads. I can understand some people thinking his character is too far out in the weeds, but for some people, it really is a scary reality.
So, this book is definitely political and I imagine that Kenneth Oppel had some of these ideas bouncing around in his head in the early days of COVID-19 racing across the globe. He really captured the feelings of those early quarantines and the doubts and fears of institutional trust as well.
So by the time we get to about two-thirds through Best of All Worlds, Oppel introduces some religious elements of the plagues of Egypt, but I almost couldn’t help but think of the Tower of Babel and the hubris of humanity and trying to reach the heights of God. The ending is satisfying for me, but like I said, not all your questions get answered by the last page. Xavier and his family still don’t understand every part of their imprisonment by the end, but I don’t know many people who understood every fact behind the Global Pandemic as well.
I would recommend Best of All Worlds, especially to a YA reader, but I also totally would understand why this book would not be for you (I know people who are still triggered by certain aspects of the past 5 years for sure). I teach junior high and we are already getting to the point with some of these kids where they don’t remember much about those early days of the Pandemic, so this book might be a great entry point to talking about it with a younger, middle grade crowd.
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