Tag Archives: The Chrysalids

Your Saturday Book Review: The Chrysalids or Rebirth (US title)

Title: Rebirth (US) or The Chrysalids (UK)
Format Availability: ALL
Genre: Science Fiction

Joy is rediscovering a book you read in childhood, and still loving it.

I first read Rebirth when I was a child and probably didn’t get most of the references. I understood the future post-apocalypse part, having already absorbed Twilight Zone reruns and the Outer Limits. Horror movies had made me aware that nuclear attacks could lead to mutations, long before I learned it any science class. I don’t know if I would have made any analogies between the fundamentalists in the story and real life fundies as I wasn’t exposed to a lot of ultra-religious types.

Because the protagonists are young, this is a tale that would probably today be considered “young adult” although it’s a story anyone can enjoy, and everyone should read. I wonder if teenagers today, reared on The Hunger Games would like it. They might. The young people in Rebirth are also being in endangered by their society. They aren’t wizards, but like Harry Potter and his friends, they aren’t exactly muggles either. Continue reading Your Saturday Book Review: The Chrysalids or Rebirth (US title)