Havoc is a book that follows Nik, a kid from City Side who is caught on the south side of the river during a war between both banks, a war that Nik is much more involved in that he knows at the start. Nik’s past, his family history, and his friends are his ties to the war, ties that he will never be able to break. The city side of the river is where Nik grew up, it is the rich side full of technology and skyscrapers, the southside is where his alliance lies, a place of poverty and refugees, where food is scarce and technology non-existent.
A character that I found very interesting is Nomu. Nomu is not involved throughout the whole story but her role toward the end plays a very big part in the corruption of city side and she is a very interesting character. Nomu is from the “dry”. This is a place far away in the desert, a place where there is no war and no poverty, a safe haven. Someone from cityside threatens this safe haven by strategically placing a sickness deep into the village, killing many people. However, the dry dwellers do not know that this was done on purpose but think it was an accident. Nomu and a group from the dry agree to give up a portion of the safe haven to people from the city side in exchange for the vaccine for the disease. What they don’t know is that the City Side are planning to deploy the disease on the defenceless southside as an act of chemical warfare. When Nomu finds this out she crusades with Nik against cityside in order to save the Southsiders. I respect Nomu for her courage, integrity, passion to do the right thing, and most of all her respect for everyone. In the book, she is a strong woman who stands up for what is right stays composed in life or death situations and ends up helping Nik save thousands of potential casualties.
A message that I took from the book is that everyone has a price, some peoples more than others. I mean this in that anyone will betray anyone for something, will help the opposition if they are given the right price or forced enough. This is made clear with both Nik and his father. Niks father was a city side soldier his whole adulthood until he betrayed them and moved to the southside. This came at the price of saving Nik in his early childhood and was the only decision that the father could make if he wanted Nik to live. During the text, Nik is faced with a similar situation with saving his best friend Lanya. She is held captive by Cityside and cityside get Nik to do some reconnaissance against southside in order for Nik to free Lanya. Nik didn’t have to do this spy work but if he chose not to then Lanya would have died and her death would have been on his conscience. This relates to my life in much smaller, much less consequential events. Not so much within my close friend group but its something you see with girls every second day. They will sell out their friend in a heartbeat for reasons less meaningful or consequential than them killing a spider. This is a bit different to Niks as he had really good reasons and motive but it goes to show everyone has a price, some people are just cheaper than others.
As mentioned in the paragraph above, a challenge Nik had to deal with was him and his best friend/crush Lanya being held captive by City Side. Nik was faced with the option of saving Lanya and in the process likely not being able to prevent the deaths of thousands of southside citizens, one who was his father, or watching Lanya slowly die and still be able to help prevent the deaths of all the southside civilians. This was a big decision for Nik that ultimately decided the fate of everyone important in his life. Nik agreed to help cityside in order to save Lanya and during his “spy work” for cityside he outsmarted them in the adverse conditions and turned against them, in time to save both Lanya and the people of the southside. This is something that is very adverse and is obviously a position I have never been in and hope to never be in but as mentioned before is something that you see to a smaller extent with girls at school. My response to these challenges is that Nik did what he had to do. The moment I found out that Nik was going to help the Citysiders I was angered at how he could be so selfish but over the next bit of the book I was enlightened of his big scheme to outsmart the City siders and I believe was a decision that not many could make but Nik made perfectly.
The title “Havoc” was very appropriate to the book. This is because the disease that the City Siders deployed in the dry and planned to deploy on the southside was named havoc. This meant the title “Havoc” is very appropriate as it is something that was heavily involved in the book. It also meant the author could use the title in parts of the text such as “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!”. I think there are hardly any, if any better names for this book. I would recommend this book to people between the ages of 14 to 20. This is because anyone under 14 May struggle to understand any deeper meanings of the text and the book may be slightly childish for older generations. I think its a must-read for people my age who like books with good storylines and lots of actions with a plot that is always throwing surprises out the window.
In conclusion, I think “Havoc”, by Jane Higgins is a very good read and I thoroughly enjoyed spending my team invested in this book. There is a lot going on in certain parts of the book but that adds to the excitement by hooking readers in.
Marcus