The Returners

by Gemma Malley

Overview

London teenager Will Hodge is miserable. His mother is dead, his father's political leanings have grown radical, and his friends barely talk to him. To top it off, he's having nightmares about things like concentration camps. Then Will notices he's being followed by a group of people who claim to know him from another time in history. It turns out they are Returners, reincarnated people who carry with them the memory of atrocities they have witnessed in the past. Will realizes that he, too, is a Returner. But something about his memories is different, and with dawning horror, Will suspects that he wasn't just a witness to the events, he was instrumental in making them happen. Set in the near future, with the world on the verge of a new wave of ethnic cleansing, Will must choose to confront the cruelty he's known in his past lives, or be doomed to repeat it...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781599908038
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/10/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

Gemma Malley studied philosophy at Reading University before working as a journalist. She is the author of The Declaration and The Resistance, and lives in London with her husband and two young children.

Editorial Reviews

The sins of the past threaten to repeat themselves in the future, as Malley (The Declaration) offers a thought-provoking exploration of mankind's capacity for good and evil. In 2016 London, a fierce nationalistic sentiment encourages discrimination and violence against foreigners and immigrants. Meanwhile, teenager Will Hodges struggles with bouts of rage, his father's mercurial mood swings, his mother's suicide years earlier, unreliable memories, horrifying nightmares, and the sensation that he is being stalked. Soon it's explained that, like his stalkers, he is a Returner, destined to witness and remember historical atrocities while being reincarnated (“We experience the worst that humanity is capable of,” another Returner explains to Will, “we absorb the pain, contain the horrors”). When Will further learns that his role in past brutalities may not have been passive or unwilling, he rebels against his fate. It's an intensely philosophical study of free will versus predestination and the relationship between past, present, and future, though it suffers somewhat from Will's halting, present-tense narration. The concept is fascinating, and there are enough harrowing moments to hold readers' attention. Ages 12–up. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 8 Up—Will Hodges's mother killed herself a few years ago and since then he's been experiencing horrible nightmares, drifting away from his friends, and having difficulty at school. His relationship with his dad, whom he is beginning to realize is something of a bigot, is strained, at best. In addition, he finds himself in places without remembering how he got there or what he might have been doing in the interim. Worst of all are the "freaks" who are following him and watching him with strange, sad eyes. These people, who call themselves "Returners," are the element that distinguishes this from other novels of teenage woe. Will learns that he, too, is a Returner, one who lives again and again to experience humanity's pain. His nightmares of the Holocaust and other terrible events are actually memories. Later, Will figures out that he is different from the other Returners in that he has actually been the perpetrator of all the murder, torture, and violence that he remembers. His blackouts have hidden some of his own frightful actions such as bullying a friend's younger brother. The other Returners tell him that there is nothing that he can do to change, that he must abide by his destiny. Only in the final pages do readers discover if Will is doomed to this fate. This isn't a pleasant read, but it may appeal to teens who are grappling with the issue of violence, either personal or societal.—Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI

School Library Journal

George Santayana famously warned that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This novel is about the condemned, those souls who return to relive the past. Will Hodge is only a teenager, miserable in a world where his mother is dead, his father can't be trusted and friends barely speak to him anymore. He's haunted by nightmares from the distant past. They're bleak, full of cruelty and painful images he can't shake. In the midst of all this, he witnesses a friend try to help a victim of street assault . . . or was he the one who committed the crime? Will is told he is one of the Returners, condemned to live out past horrors and commit new ones, to serve as humanity's collective memory. Will has a decision to make: Will he choose to repeat the past? Or create a new and different path? A strange book that will capture the attention of some while leaving others confused, it presents readers with the challenge that is always passed on to the next generation-the world is theirs and will become what they make of it. A good read, but not for everyone. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews