The Academy by Emmaline Andrews was a brilliant, romantic, heart-string
pulling YA novel. Set in a post-apocalyptic (or so I assume) world where
people live on planets and moons. They call earth 'Earth-that-was'. Kristina Jameson and her twin brother Kristopher live a quiet existence on Victoria, one of the older fashioned planets. Due to illness when he was young, Kristopher never attended school and was taught by tutors. Girls are not allowed education (grrrr says my feminist side). Although in reality, Kristina did all of his work while he played the violin. Kristopher's dream is to have a chair in the orchestra and almost achieves it when their father declares he is now well enough to go to school. The Academy.
Kristina decided to take his place, posing as a her brother in an all boy's school to avoid the fate her Father has set out for her. Marry her off to an abusive man and have her bear children for the rest of her life. Understandably, this is not what she wants. Kristina thinks if she can complete the two years at the Academy without being caught she can become a Navigator of a star ship in the Private Sector where they don't care about gender. If she doesn't fall in love with her room-mate, and be fed to the school bully in the process...
I loved Kristina, she was smart and didn't take crap from anyone. I liked how she was able to come up with witty retorts and talk her way out of situations. When Broward the bully tried to beat her up, I actually felt scared for her. This guy means business.
North was just amazing. He is one of those swoon worthy male characters that you feel bad for because the protagonist is tricking him. Albeit not intentionally, Kristina gets North to fall for her. Throughout the whole book I felt sad for North because he was questioning his sexuality, thinking he might be gay because he had these feelings for his room-mate, whom he thought was another male!
The writing was good, and character development was very well done. My only problem was that I wish there would have been more description of the planets. Readers only get little brief snippets of the indigo colored grass, and the special features of each planet. Andrews could have created an enticing world if there had been more explanation. From what I did learn, the different places where beautiful and exotic. Somewhere I would want to visit.
Many times I found myself embarrassed for Kristina and I kept thinking that if I was in her situation I would die. Boys can be foul, and from where Kristina was raised, they were absolute barbarians.
The ending to this book couldn't have been more perfect. I recommend this novel for anyone looking for something easy, romantic, and different from main stream YA.
Cheers,
Jessica
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