ZomB Part 2

I don't remember ever reading a book with a plot twist (of sorts) of this caliber. What do you do when the entire first book you think the main character is a girl and not a boy.

This is what I mean by Darren Shan being such a innovative and detail oriented author. He gave me, the reader, just enough information about the main character that it makes complete sense that B is short for Becky. She's just a very tomboyish girl, which can easily be explained by her abusive father and her need to be strong for herself. The ending was gripping and fast, and the ending of B’s father finally shouting out her entire name, Becky, was rather tantalizing. I could not stop reading, and lucky me, I had the next book right beside me. I finished that one as well, but I’ll keep that for another blogpost.

After the strange encounter with the Tall man, B has a field trip to the local museum with the rest of her class, something that rarely happens because of their bad behavior. However, this tip is different, as they have just finished adding the Holocaust section. At first, B doesn’t seem too concerned, the whole class has read about what happened during that time period, but when a classmate speaks up after another’s poor attempt at a joke he says this:

“One of my uncles was Polish. He was sent to Auschwitz in the thirties. Not the death camp, where they gassed people, but the concentration camp. He worked like a slave until he was a skeleton. Starved. Tortured. The bones in one of his feet were smashed with a hammer. He survived for a long time, longer than most. But in the end he was hung for allegedly stealing food from a guard. They let him hang for nearly ten minutes, without him killing him. Then they took him down, let him recover, and hung him again until he was dead.

If there are any more jokes, or if you take one step out of line from this point on, you’ll have to answer to me.”

This unsettles everyone as Jonesenzio is usually quite quiet. As the class goes through the exhibition, many of Becky’s classmates cry, but she doesn’t. Her teacher, Mr. Burke eventually speaks up, with only B answering:

“Sobering stuff isn’t it?”

“They were monsters”

“You think so?”

“Nobody human could have done that”

And here’s when Becky really starts to question her allegiance to her father

“Maybe that’s what we should do with the immigrants.”

“You can’t say that!”

“Why not? I heard about your fight with Nancy (a black girl) and how Mrs. Reed whitewashed it because of friendship with her father.”

After a brief argument Mr. Burke ends it with this very interesting quote:

“I’ve heard all the arguments before. I’m not going to tell you which side you should be on. You’re old enough to choose. All I’m saying is be aware. Know what you’re signing up for and accept the consequences. Mrs. Reed and your dad are modern day fascists. Only a fool would think otherwise.”

To be honest, many people should have someone tell them that they have a choice. They don’t have to be a certain way, be it for the gratification of a loved one, like Becky and her father. 
This is another aspect of Darren Shan's writing style; he doesn't have any problem setting the tone using horrifying details and thought provoking dialogue. That's what I love about his books, nothing is left to the imagination without his explicit permission.