Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville are, separately, two very important children’s fantasists. Ms. Yolen has written hundreds of books for children of all different ages, plus a handful of books intended for adults. One of her novels, Briar Rose, was a “Fairy Tales” series novel, like Tanith Lee’s White as Snow, and Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin. She lives in New England. The first Bruce Coville book I read was My Teacher is an Alien, but the majority of his work has much less lurid titles. He lives in Syracuse, as does Tamora Pierce; they appear to be friends as well as collaborators, as he founded Full Cast Audio. This novel is, as it says, the first collaboration between the two, although Mr. Coville and Ms. Yolen have been friends for years.

The novel is written in alternating chapters; half belong to Marina, a girl about to turn fourteen, and the other half to Jed, who is sixteen. Each has a connection to a strange cult that believes that the world is going to end in fire on July 27th, 2000 (Marina’s fourteenth birthday). Marina’s family is true believers, except her father; she has convinced herself that she believes as well. Jed’s father, after Jed’s mother left them, sank into depression, and only the strangely charismatic Rev. Beelson, could get him out of it. Jed absolutely doesn’t believe that the world will end so soon, but he ends up, with Marina and her family and enough other people to make exactly 144, on top of a mountain for the two weeks before the supposed ending of the world. What is going to happen on that day?

Apparently the original idea for the book was Jane Yolen’s; she knew she wanted to write a book about a millennialist cult, but wasn’t exactly sure how. She invited Mr. Coville to collaborate with her, and they wrote the majority of the book in several white-fire marathon sessions over a three-year period. (The length of time actually spent writing the book was three weeks, but spread over a long time.) Most of the novel is set in one two-week period; anything that comes before the Believers actually leave for the mountaintop is backstory, albeit important. Despite the alternating views, very little is repeated. Marina and Jed don’t actually spend a good deal of time together in the two weeks, although they do manage to fall in love.

The romance is a bit weird to me; I don’t really particularly know that too many fourteen-year-olds and sixteen-year-olds can fall in true love. I can believe, though, that Marina and Jed would have some sort of special bond, after what they’d been through. The book ends before too much time has passed, and we don’t know if they grow up to get married or whatever. I’d like to think that they stay essentially apart until they’re finished with college, and then they fall in love all over again, but that’s just the adult, married romantic speaking. The ages, of course, were chosen because they mimic the ages of Romeo and Juliet; also, fourteen and sixteen are, in many ways, equivalent ages in mental development for males and females.

In any case, in their comments on the book, both authors say that they were very interested in writing what is a rarity among children’s literature: a story about religion. In some ways, the religion in this book is as alien to most mainstream Christians as the Greek gods, or a made-up religion from fantasy literature. So although there are trappings of Christianity and many biblical quotes and allusions, it doesn’t come across as a mocking of either religion in general or Christianity specifically. I suppose if one actually were a believer in a millennialist cult, it might be a bit different, but Ms. Yolen and Mr. Coville tried to make the Rev. Beelson as human as possible — it was actually one of their goals, not to have a stereotype for the leader of the cult.

This is definitely an amazing book. Marina and Jed start out at opposite ends of the spectrum, and both gradually move towards the middle. Marina’s relationship with her family members is also interesting, especially with her mother. Jed’s relationship with his father is not perhaps as compelling for me, but then again, I might be able to blame that on my gender rather than Mr. Coville’s characterizations. There’s one other parent-child relationship that’s important in the novel, and I’d rather not give that one away, but it’s another humanizing aspect of the book. Although I didn’t spend very much time worrying about the end of the book, the plot was still riveting, but not as much so as the characters and their relationships. I’d definitely recommend this to anyone over about 10; there’s a bit of violence, but nothing that I think I should warn about. 5/5 stars.