| Title | : | Empty |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0545172780 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780545172783 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 192 |
| Publication | : | First published October 1, 2010 |
It's the near future - the very near future - and the fossil fuels are running out. No gas. No oil. Which means no driving. No heat. Supermarkets are empty. Malls have shut down. Life has just become more local than we ever knew it could be.
Nobody expected the end to come this fast. And in the small town of Spring Valley, decisions that once seemed easy are quickly becoming matters of life and death. There is hope - there has to be hope - just there are also sacrifices that need to be made, and a whole society that needs to be rethought.
Empty Reviews
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Empty by Suzzane Weyn was a book that I had to force myself to finish. The overall story bored me to the point that I was skipping many pages at once to get it over with. From the blurb I was expecting a fast moving dystopian sci-fi novel filled with suspense , action and adventure but instead I found a teenage romance novel with yet another love triangle! Don't get me wrong, I do like a good romance novel but the romance was anything but good. It was practically dead and well… plain boring. The story was poorly developed with barely anything interesting happening. The idea for the dystopian world was obviously plausible but lacked enough detail to give readers the sense that the author gave the idea enough thought. The time in which scenes occurred was vague, along with details of what exactly happening in the world around them . The story seemed 'meddled up' , being anything but smooth.
I also noticed that Empty was written using the technique of 3rd person omniscient(not to be mistaken with 3rd person) , which allows the author to write in 3rd person not concentrating on merely one character but all the characters. This technique , when well used , can be very effective but Suzzanne Weyn did NOT use it well. Instead she create a story that seemed stilted in pace , slightly confusing and annoying to read.
Frankly, at the beginning of the book nothing happened besides the characters going on with their daily lives , I kept reading in hopes that eventually something would happen.
I didn't enjoy the characters in the book, they were bland and their dialogue was awkward. The author didn't work with the setting that she created . For a majority of the novel more focus was given to the personal lives of the characters. Which as a consequence overshadowed the one message that I liked about the book - how dependent we are on things such as oil and gas.
Also, the story ended in a way that seemed unrealistic and almost to easy...
Despite everything I still managed to finish the book so it might not have been as bad as I made it out to be. -
The blurb on the back, and the cover drew me in, but there wasn't much else to like about this book. The plot sounded interesting, 10 years from now and the planet is running out of fossil fuels. No gas. No oil. No driving means supermarkets are empty. No medicines. No electricity.
The main characters in this book, Tom, Gwen, and Niki are more worried about who is going out with whom, than how they are going to survive. Was a "love triangle" necessary in this book? Their reactions to things, like their possible starvation and the destruction of their society, is almost non-existent. Of utmost importance is whether they should go to the yearly bonfire! Really?!
As if the dire situation of the planets dwindling supply of fossil fuels, and a war that breaks out between the U.S. and Venezuela over oil supplies isn't enough, the author decides to throw in a "super hurricane" caused by global warming into the plot!
After the cover, this book ran quickly out of gas. Hitch a ride on some other book, this one won't take you anywhere. -
The writing is quite straightforward, the characters are consistent, what sings in this novel is the theme. Wake up! We are, for all intents and purposes, out of oil- it is non-renewable!
When the near east, Canada and Alaska run out of oil- the US declares war on Argentina to force opening of new oil fields for our use. Bolivia, holder of lithium, joins Argentina against the US.
At home, 17 year old Gwen is living under the radar, her mom split years ago and she and her older brother Luke are trying to keep Gwen out of social services keen eye. When domestic oil is directed to the war effort and all pumps are empty, social chaos erupts. The cascading effect of our reliance on petroleum is laid bare in the events of the novel. This is a hopeful wake up call sent out at the midnight hour to anyone who will listen. -
I hate to be so harsh, really, I do, I don't give one star reviews without a lot of soul searching (and whining to my pals about what a lovely story this could have been), but Empty is a great big disappointment to me.
Following are my three reasons for giving this such a low rating;
One, the characters are vehicles for exposing the problem of oil scarcity (a noble goal) but it is so stolidly done that it is hard to like or care for them. Over and over the reader is subjected to the characters laments over the rising price of lipstick, gasoline, everything under the sun, instead of giving names to the main characters they could have been labeled, 'average jock teen, angry young man, and shy girl with greasy hair.' Dullsville and it makes it hard to differentiate them whenever something happened. The characters spend most of their time wandering around hot, sweaty and worried, but the story never really does much to motivate them to do something.
Two, frequent interruptions by news reports. At first sight, the news reports were a clever choice. The news articles speak of rising unrest, oil scarcity and the game of thrones that is happening as the world fights over the last oil rich reserves. But instead of using the news articles as a nice info dump so that your characters don't have to ghost around saying stuff like, 'I hear there could be a war with______ which could lead to terrible _______' So clumsy and a complete waste of valuable dialogue time. Teens at school, crushing on their schoolmates, hanging out with friends, mostly oblivious to the rising storm would have been more believable than teens discussing politics and world events with each other while walking to class.
Three, Unsatisfying ending. Naturally, I can't tell you what happens at the end, that would be a major spoiler, but by the time I got to the end of the book, I was hoping for a good ending, or at least a fun cliffhanger that would lead into the next book but instead its just the end.
If you are looking for a dystopian or a 'everything goes to hell in a fashionably rustic basket' novel check out Gone, How I live Now, The Carbon Diaries, Matched, The Giver, The Handsmaids Tale or Life as We Knew It. If you absolutely must read this, get it from the library. -
Tof verhaal over een wereld zonder olie. Een zeer beangstigende doch realistische toekomstvisie. Jammer van de liedesdriehoek, maar de krantenartikels tussen de hoofdstukken maken een hoop goed. De laatste pagina vond ik ietwat belerend, maar desondanks heb ik zeker genoten van dit boek. Empty had van mij nog veel langer mogen duren!
Mijn complete recensie lees je op
Oog op de Toekomst. -
Are you an aspiring author who lacks confidence that your manuscript can cut the mustard with a publisher?
Read "Empty" and feel your confidence in your work become FULL.
If this can get published, then surely you can!
I've always lived under the assumption that an author submits a manuscript and then the editor reads it and suggests revisions. I get the impression that in this case, they ran spell check and decided it was good to go.
Our local Borders went belly and so they had a several-weeks clearance sale. I usually never buy books unless I know exactly what I'm buying. But I couldn't resist picking up a few random titles at discount prices. This book looked intriguing sitting in the YA fiction section at 60% off. Maybe the fact that there were roughly 50 other available copies should have tipped me off that this was not a sought-after volume.
It's set about ten years in the future, and the citizens of the earth are coming to the realization that the world's oil supply is almost gone. I'm not really a huge environmentalist or anything, but it could make for an interesting enough story, right?
I think the author simply tried to accomplish too much in 250 pages. To really make her idea work, it probably needed to be a three book series. But she was probably worried that once they figured out she wasn't a fiction writer, they wouldn't publish a second or third book. So it all got crammed into one book.
It's told from the point of view of three teens in a New England town. There's Tom, your garden variety teen boy who's handsome, muscular, and sensitive. There's Niki, your stereotypical hottie cheerleader who has been spoiled by her parents. And there's Gwen, the Goth chick with black hair who lives on the edge and is a little bit ahead of the curve when it comes to smart energy. There's also a Hispanic kid who lives in a trailer. I forget his name - we'll call him Carlos for the purposes of this review.
In the book, oil prices are around $100 a gallon. A bunch of teens get in an all-out brawl because the rival school gets caught siphoning gas from their cars. Gwen's house burns down becasue her rebel brother is storing black market fuel in milk cartons. Niki's dad goes on a rampage and shatters an antique chair and throws it in the fire place because he can't get a job in the distressed economy. And then things get real bad when the superhurricane hits.
The book is basically green energy propaganda poorly disguised as fiction. It reads like a pamphlet with quotation marks and characters randomly inserted to make it seem like a story.
There's the romantic subplots. Carlos likes Gwen. Gwen likes Tom. Tom likes Niki. Niki likes herself. As the book progresses, Niki starts to like Tom but is worried that Tom might like Gwen. She also might still like her old boyfriend after the high oil prices mellow him out. Tom starts to like Gwen, but is worried that Carlos and Gwen have something going. Gwen likes Carlos, but only as a friend, and tells him as much. It's not really clear how that whole situation resolves itself, although we're led to believe that Tom and Gwen end up together. But the whole thing is so boring that you don't really care.
This book has continuity errors galore. And I'm a stickler for continuity. If you're too lazy to write your book so that it makes sense, why should I bother to listen to any of the ideas you put forth?
The good news is, you'll be glad to know that everything ends up just fine in the future after we run out of oil. So no worries!
NOTE: I skipped adding a spoiler alert, because you don't care. Trust me.
I've already given this book away to the YW garage sale, and some other sucka probably paid good money for it - or maybe they didn't and it's on a Goodwill shelf somewhere. -
I had high hopes when I picked up this book. The plot/scenario sounded interesting - no matter what side of the "green" debate one stands on, I don't think anyone can deny that oil will run out some day, whether it's in the near future or a few generations from now - and I've grown used to young adult books dealing with dystopian, apocalyptic or just plain disaster plots in an intelligent and decently written way.
So, yes, "Empty" held a lot of promise for me. Unfortunately what it turned out to be was a book that read like a lecture aimed at ten-year-olds (or perhaps eight-year-olds), certainly not young adults - although the half-hearted attempt at romance and characters in their later teens seemed to indicate otherwise. The language and narrative style were so simplistic it was hard to get truly interested and the lecturing, the "message" came through so hard and clear that it occasionally nearly turned me off (and I'm by and large a supporter of the ideas being promoted here).
That's not to say the book was all bad - it was a quick and at times not completely dull read, and the characters, while not exactly engaging or with a huge amount of personality, weren't off-putting. Might be a decent read for a child / pre-teen who is interested in saving the planet and life without oil, I suppose. -
The book was really realistic and true. Somehow maybe in the near future gas prices may go up to 90$ per gallon. We may run out of fossil fuels, and a drip of gas may mean a lot. Also this book was very informational I learned a lot from this book about this world.
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Empty / 978-0-545-17278-3
I'm a greenie in good standing - I know the difference between "recycled content" and "post-consumer recycled content", I avoid petroleum based products as much as possible, and I drive as little as possible. Even if I hadn't been interested in doing these things for my own health and the health of the planet, it's been good sense to wean off of petroleum products ever since the market started demonstrating just how volatile it really is. So I'm all in favor of a good dystopia novel that can drive home just how dependent America is on oil and how dangerous that dependency can be, but "Empty" by Suzanne Weyn is NOT that novel.
The writing in this novel is atrocious - major plot points are "summarized" at the ends of each chapter with newspaper articles that sound fake, unrealistic, and rushed - as if the author couldn't be bothered to edit them properly before going to print. The entirety of the novel is told from the point of view of several teenage "everymen" characters - all of whom sound identically bland - and the "action" of the novel unfolds by having supporting characters literally walk up to them on the street and lecture them about how dependent we are on gasoline and why the world is rapidly going to heck in a handbasket. The cardinal rule of writing - "Show, don't tell" - is broken on every single page of this novel; for instance, in order to demonstrate how the hot water in our pipes relies on gasoline to heat it, we do NOT see a character wash her hair and get a nasty surprise when the water is ice cold. No, instead we have a character *announce* that she's going to wash her hair so that another character can TELL her that the plan won't work, and why not. This is boring, unimaginative, and reads like a badly-written religious tract.
"Empty" is set "ten years from now", but the author seems not to understand what this might entail. She seems to want a story where everything is going along fine and then *BAM* gasoline shortages, but this would mean that either (1) the story would have to be longer in order to really explore the concept of petroleum shortages, or (2) quite a lot of the shortages would have to be jettisoned from the plot entirely. You see, if all oil were gone tomorrow, we wouldn't immediately run out of shampoo (there's a lot stored up in warehouses waiting to be sold), but the characters of "Empty" *must* run out of shampoo *immediately* after the novel starts, so the reader is flat-out told that the high school girls have been hoarding shampoo and nail polish for awhile now. In the same vein, electricity rationing has been going on in town, if only because people can't afford to run the heat and A/C constantly.
But if rationing has been going on for some time, why does the sudden blackout slam the characters into complete, dumbfounded confusion? Where are the candles and the non-petroleum shampoo? One step further, where are the candle making equipment and the shampoo home recipes? Why does everyone in the area have a gasoline- or lithium-powered generator, but no one has ever even HEARD of a manual- or wind-powered generator? And why, WHY, do all the teenagers have holographic cell phones that they use constantly?
What's most frustrating about "Empty" is the lost potential. I'd LOVE to see a dystopia novel where everyone breaks out their vague memories of "Little House on the Prairie" and of childhood boy scout lessons, and then people start experimenting with boiling water on the charcoal grill for bathwater, and figuring out how to cook food in their fireplace, but all we ever get from "Empty" is lectures masquerading as dialogue, teenagers crushing on each other, and everyone being completely clueless and helpless. It's strange and inhuman to see half the people in town unable to get to work or school because it's "too far to walk" and no one even MENTIONS the possibility of bicycles, not even as a handwave to support the plot (as in, "wow, it's too bad all the bicycles were destroyed in the Great Two-Wheeled Cataclysm of 2020!"); at least not until everyone is shepherded into New Utopia Village where everything is clean and self-sustained, and bicycles are magically dispensed from a company grant. (I'm really not making this up.)
Words really cannot describe how disappointed I am with this book. Everything about this book - the characters, the way they interact, their responses in a crisis, the newspaper articles, the very world around them - comes off as completely unreal, totally fake, and poorly written. The subject of oil dependence is an important one, and it deserves a better novel than this. The problems with oil dependence should be *shown* to the reader, not baldly told to them by supporting characters in between the snogging sessions of the "main" characters. I honestly feel that this novel was rushed out to take advantage of the market and the "greenest" thing to do would be to not buy it at all.
NOTE: This review is based on a free Advance Review Copy of this book provided through Amazon Vine.
~ Ana Mardoll -
It is 2021. Gas climbs to $40 a gallon, then to $80 a gallon, and then runs out completely. The U.S. has invaded Venezuela in a fruitless bid to corner the last drops of the petro-economy. Not only are people not driving, people are unable to buy any petroleum products including cosmetics, pens, crayons, and a thousand other everyday items. More chillingly, the grocery stores are empty, children are hungry, and America is sinking into anarchy.
Empty follows the experience of some high school students in an east coast town while giving updates on the world's descent into chaos. Teenagers used to worrying about football and dating are now struggling to survive. The survivalist aspect of the book is what impressed me the most and, I confess made me wonder how I would survive and provide for my family in such a disaster. Where would I find food? How would I get fresh water?
The writing itself in Empty is not the best, however, its premise and the story it tells are definitely worth reading. -
*Review also posted at
Briar Rose Reads
I must confess: I am a bit obsessed with dystopian and post-apocalyptic YA fiction. For me, as with most people, it probably started with
The Hunger Games, and grew from there. Soon after reading
The Hunger Games, I found Carrie Ryan’s haunting, claustrophobic
The Forest of Hands and Teeth, and I was hooked. Though those two series are very different, they share a kind of raw desperation that I found beautiful, and I’ve been searching for more of it ever since.
I started “Empty” with high hopes. The cover is well-done, and the premise sounded timely in a compelling way. I think we’re all aware that our connected modern lives are powered by a non-renewable resource, and I was excited to find a YA book addressing what might happen once that resource starts running out.
Unfortunately, I was disappointed. I tried to like the book, but its flaws were numerous and glaring enough to keep me from getting absorbed in the story. The writing seems stilted and amateurish, and the characters frequently spout awkward, paragraph-long info-dumps. So many anvils are dropped that I’m surprised I finished the book without a concussion. I love books in which the message is a organic part of the story; in “Empty” the message has been shoe-horned in as frequently and loudly as possible.
Then there were the characters, all too often flat and cliché. The worst offender was the stereotypical cheerleader, whose “character growth” moment was deciding it was okay to wear glasses instead of contacts. (Not even because she had come to understand that appearance didn’t matter much in a world gripped by crisis—more because she realized she still looked pretty in glasses.) A few of the second-tier characters had the potential to be interesting, but they got sadly little attention.
To my total lack of surprise, the ending was incongruous, bordering on deus ex machina.
I still think the premise of the book is good, but the execution leaves much to be desired. My advice: read Paolo Bacigalupi’s excellent
Ship Breaker instead. -
Read this review at Smash Attack Reads!
http://www.smashattackreads.com/2012/...
Interest in the book: Any time the new Scholastic catalog is released, I jump at the chance to read any of their titles that have a dystopian or post-apocalyptic setting. I especially loved the idea of Empty, as it poses some really good questions on how the heck life would go on without fossil fuels. Society relies so much on these nonrenewable resources, and it’s downright scary to think about what life would be like if we run out. The author gives us a bleak yet inspiring look into a possible future.
Characters: Most of the characters in this book were fairly simple in terms of characterization. There are multiple points of view in this story, and I appreciated that all the kids remained optimistic, as kids tend to do. I will say that I loved Tom the most. He surprised me a few times and I enjoyed being in side of his head. Connection to the characters was minimal, and while that is highly important in most stories, the world building was the true gem of this story.
Worldbuilding: As usual, this was my favorite part of this book. The author has presented us with a world the likes of which we hope to never see. Oil is quickly drying up, countries are fighting over the last drops. One gallon of gas is nearing $100. Businesses of all types and sizes are closing down because they cannot afford to remain open. I was horrified by how much we really do rely on oil. It is used in the production of just about everything. We all have read or witnessed what occurs when people panic, and the “every man for himself” mentality is clearly at play in this book. Seeing people in this light is seriously depressing and scary.
Lasting Impressions: What I love most about this book and what it represents is knowledge. I really adore the author for bringing such serious issues to the attention of the younger generations, who tend to be a little to comfortable inside their technology bubbles these days. Most of the children and adolescents I work with are completely clueless on world issues. A lot of this falls on the parents, who are also content inside their bubbles, but hopefully books like these will offer some insight. My entire life’s purpose was drastically changed because of a movie (based on a true even), and we all know books are way more inspiring. :)
Smashtastic Entertainment Scale: Enjoyable and Important -
This book is such an eyeopener and I actually found myself freaking out more and more while reading it. Imagine that gas becomes scarcer and more expensive than it already is (seriously, within the last couple of days in Southern Ontario gas has increased by 8 cents a liter- great). I never knew to what extent we relied on gas an if it were to become non-existent how it would affect everyday life (seriously, no TV! How would I watch my darling Damon on "The Vampire Diaries"?!? No fresh food/ produce- besides what could be grown locally- and most importantly, no water).
Now I must say that this book is pretty environmentally-friendly preachy, but I didn't too much because it is something that I think that we need to be more aware of and something that we should think about more and more (ie. do you really have to leave the tap on when you brush your teeth or do you have to leave your phone charger- or any charger in general- plugged in when it is not charging anything? Do you know how much power those babies suck up?). One of the characters ends up finding an abandoned model home that is entirely eco-friendly and self-sustaining- the Whippersnapper- and it is one of the coolest things I have ever read about before in a book (think the hollowed out tree in "My Side of the Mountain", but you know, in a house form) and I would love to see the Whippersnapper become a reality.
My largest complaint of this book is the characters. I personally didn't feel a connection to them whatsoever, which I found to be quite shocking since there is almost always at least one character that I love in a series.
All in all I think that this would be a great book for middle grade kids and those who like stories where it seems like all hope is lost but at the end you are left with a flicker of hope. -
It took me about 2 weeks to read this. Why?
-The writing style was forced and confusing. One chapter would be in July and then the next would say, "Saturday Gwen got up." But you wouldn't realize it was 2 months later until halfway through the chapter. The very beginning of the book said 10 years from now. Ten years from what date? Not until the middle of the book do we find out that it is 2003. Time references were awful.
-The story was too easy and forced. Gwen went into a mine. She stored a flashlight earlier. But the batteries were stored separately because they are so smart. She happens onto an alternate energy sourced home. The world is saved. Tom's dad dies. He left him a sailboat. They got medicine for the townsfolk. The world is saved. Annoying.
-The characters were not believable and forced. I'm all about young heroines but besides the Curtin's the adults were worthless. And speaking of the Curtin's, the just happen to be all knowing about alternate energy. I didn't feel connected to these characters in any way.
-It felt like the author was shoving global warming and being green down our throat. Instead of telling us the story, this was basically a "don't do this or this will happen" story, which kind of made me not care because it was forced.
-The little bit of romance in the book was forced.
-The dialogue was unrealistic and forced.
The book was forced. That is all that really needs to be said. -
17 year old Gwen Jones worries most about the fact that her mother left her in the care of her older brother Luke and ran off with her boyfriend. If anyone finds out, she knows that she will be put into foster care. That worry becomes lost in the chaos of the US going to war with Venezuela over oil. When that happens, the small town of Sage Valley undergoes major trauma with violence over the availability of gas and the cost. When global warming fuels a superhurricane that devastates the country, it seems like things can't get any worse. But Gwen is more resilient than she believes. After her house burns down because of blackmarket gas unsafely stored, she takes refuge in an abandoned mine. She finds an experimental green home nestled into the hillside near the mine. Gwen is a fast learner and figures out how to make ethanol which enables Tom Harris, a boy she really likes, to help others in the valley. Niki Barton, a popular cheerleader, is thrown into the mix so there is a tension of attraction among the main characters. I liked this book as it is a possible futures which is one of my favorite types. I just wish it had been longer. Some of it did seem to sermonize on the US dependence on oil. I also liked the cover.
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As oil reserves run out and oil prices skyrocket, resulting in shortages of everything, three teens in a small town in New York will have to figure out how to survive. I had such high hopes for this book and I think the premise is really interesting, but stock characters and unrealistic dialog made this one a miss. I think that kids who read it may learn some things about how oil is used that they might not have realized before, so it might have classroom applications. Aside from the cover (which I find intriguing, but I don't know how teens would find it), I don't see a whole lot of teen appeal unless they have a particular interest in fossil fuels.
More on the blog:
http://www.abbythelibrarian.com/2010/... -
No just No. I am starring at the book right this minute and wondering why I let its aesthetic appeal, well, appeal to me. the cover is pretty, the title intriguing, and thats about it. the only character with any semblance of believable human traits is Gwen. thats about it the others are bland and robotic, no teenager I know talks like that. is this dystopian?? I don't even- read this book if you want to be preached over and over and over again. Am going to read some bleach now.
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This book was very good it had a very powerful plot, and it also makes you think about what people might do if we ran out of oil.
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Ugh. This was such a boring book.. I don't even know what happened and truthfully, I don't care what happened. The characters were so flat and this book was a waste of my time.
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So it's ten years into the future and the world is running out of oil, sounds like a pretty good plot with plenty of potential. Unfortunately in young adult fashion we have the love triangle of fashionable rich girl, misunderstood boy and 'strange' outcast girl who’s faced adversity which overshadows a lot of what takes place throughout the story.
I wasn't too big a fan of the miraculous discovery of an abandoned bunker-like-house that has everything the characters need: power, water, heat, food. With the amazing and totally unrealistic perpetual motion machine in the basement which once started by battery power, runs forever more providing power.
Asides for these gripes, and that it seemingly was a very short book at 196 pages, it was alright, I can see where the author was coming from trying to spread awareness of where the planet and society is heading in a format that would be absorbed by the younger generation. Yet, I can't help but feel it was just average. I think Reiss's Black Monday was a far more enthralling tale of a world running out of oil and the repercussions that brings to society. -
I feel like this could be 2 and 1/4 stars, normally I might have rated higher but I’m trying to be more honest. It felt like a book that could’ve been a quick read and I did pick it out when I was like 14 or 15 and it’s more than ten years later so that could’ve contributed to it ( I’m trying to read the huge backlist of TBR from my youth). The idea was great and the cover looks cool and it’s such an important topic today with what could’ve been a cool introductory to pique the younger generations interest in renewable energy and going green, but I feel like the execution was off, too much romance focus and the characters just fell flat.
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I didn't mind this book quite as much as others. Great literature? No. But, it's a simple YA book. So I didn't expect that anyway. Considering the main characters are teenagers, is it any wonder that there was teen angst and romance? Overlooking that, it was a story with a warning. We do NOT care for our natural resources as we should. And what will happen when they run out? Or we ruin them. For the short story (which could have been expanded on, filling in more of a story, in my opinion), it wasn't atrocious.
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It was a really good read. I normally am not into this type of book, but I really recommend giving it a try. This book got me really thinking about our way of life.
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This book is called “Empty” by Suzanne Weyn, This is the first time I complete read an English book in two weeks!I think this book is very romantic but not so suspense.Because it always talk about Tom like Niki, Gwen likes Tom, Hector likes Gwen....and I think this book is a romantic book.
So I want to say the theme of this book is “love makes people be brave and don’t afraid anything.” And I have three evidences to show my theme, the first evidence is on page45. That part is about Niki took Tom to her house and there is none of other people in that house.Niki said to Tom she likes him.And then they kiss together. In Tom’s feelings, it said “he was no longer hungry for anything but her. Let the world fall apart; he didn’t care.” It shows Tom was fall in love and he didn’t care about the end of the world.Now he just wants to kiss Niki.
The second evidence is on the page 163. That part is about Tom and Gwen go to a place but there is no Niki. Then Gwen kiss at Tom because she likes Tom, and she said, “I have a feeling we’re going to the end of the world,but I am happy we’re going there together.” It shows Gwen feel the end of the world will comes, but she didn’t care about end or death, she just feel happy they could death together.
And the third evidence is about the setting, I want to say the setting of this book is the oil and the gas was be empty almost, everything in the town change to be bad.Lots of people afraid that the end of the world will come, and then they may go dead. But why Tom, Gwen are so brave?I think is because they are fall in love, so they didn’t afraid of the end of the world or death anymore, they just fell happy and full to have each other.
So love give them brave, let them didn’t afraid the end of the world. That why I want to say my theme of this book is “love makes people be brave and not afraid anything.”
But I think this book was no really talk about how people be afraid of the less food, oil and didn’t really talk about how that trouble makes the world be dark and terrible. In the end of this book, it said those people made a new start of the new world, so it’s a good ending? I think so, but in my opinion, I think the end of this story should be a bad ending because that could shows how people’s greedy to makes the world be dark but not just they stay together and make a new start.....That is a too easy and simple ending I think.We need always thinking about some important questions during read this book, But I didn’t think about any questions when I was reading the book...:( so sad because I thought I will learn something from this book, but not, I only can see in the book is how Niki likes Tom, how they likes each other, how they kiss together......I am not mean this book is bad, I am just say this things from my opinion. I hope another people can have the different ways of thinking and opinion with me:) -
It’s a good book but yes, it has it fair share of problems. Although the romance part was okay in the book it was completely unnecessary and was just kinda there in complete contrast to the books plot. Some things the character did also seemed unrealistic and odd. Otherwise the book was fun to read and did have a fair share of good moments!
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Empty:
The End of the World
How do you imagine the world ending? Does everybody die? Does the human race start all over again? In Empty, a science fiction novel by Suzanne Weyn, three normal teens are not prepared for what’s happening around them. Tom, Gwen, and Niki all dwell in present day Sage Valley, New York when global warming finally hits. The world’s oil has run out, and the weather is cooking up some major storms. Along with these problems, they still have to contend with everyday teen issues. Will the town be able to pull out of this struggle? One theme in Empty is that the world needs to change its ways because people need to trust each other, vital resources will run out, and global warming will begin to strike.
One reason why the world needs to change its ways is because people need to trust each other. This is shown a lot in the book by the conflicts between the characters. In times of trouble, people become desperate; they’d do anything to stay alive. A scene that describes this takes place at a grocery store, “‘What’s going on?’ […] ‘They’re fighting over the food. The store is nearly out and closing down. Those who haven’t been able to get any are attacking people as they come out with their bags” (127). If everybody had worked together, they wouldn’t be in this situation. The store could have evenly allocated the food, and there would be no fighting. We need to learn how to cope with each other, so that we can all subsist.
Another reason why the world needs to change its ways is because vital resources are running out. The earth’s natural reserves aren’t endless. Even now, the world is finding out that some supplies are less accessible, and is trying to find alternate energy sources. In the novel, oil had reached a dangerously low point, and was extremely expensive, even a war had started over it! Most towns lost their power. Tom has to deal with it like everyone else, “[He] thought that school might be canceled because of all the blackouts and the hard time people were having finding fuel. Most kids hadn’t been able to charge their tablets, and teachers were being discouraged from using the electric boards” (33). At this point, most of the oil left was fueling the army in Venezuela to try and acquire their oil. That left towns living off of one gas station that they all shared, first come, first serve style.
Lastly, the world needs to change its ways because global warming will begin to strike. The weather will heat up like it did in the book and create disasters. Apparently, there are such things as super hurricanes, which are two separate ones that coalesce together. Unfortunately, Sage Valley was hit pretty critically by one. The town was flooded and people had to travel by boat. Tom witnessed firsthand the tragedy: “Neighbors instantly noticed him and opened their windows. ‘Hey Tom, can you take me to the doctor?’ ‘I have money for food. Can you buy me some?’ ‘Tom, the mold is making my sister sick. She needs to get out of the house’” (118). People were receiving illnesses from the water that was flooding their basements, and keeping them jammed inside. Unless they had a boat, there was no way for them to go anywhere. One guy’s trailer had blown away and he was left homeless. The book shows that we need to stop pollution and global warming before it gets too late.
One theme in Empty is that the world needs to change its ways because people need to trust each other, vital resources will run out, and global warming will begin to strike. I would rate this book four stars because it was excellently written, but it gave me anxiety about the world ending. While reading this book, I noticed that it was very similar to Life As We Knew It. The main characters had to fight to stay alive and not starve when they all ran out of food. Also, in both books the kids had to start to take charge because sometimes the adults didn’t know what to do. After reading this book, I realized that everyone needs to take part in saving the planet. You can’t just say you’re going green, but never actually do anything to help. That’s just being a hypocrite. Buy a hybrid, shorten your showers, walk to school, etc. This topic is a serious matter; don’t ignore the truth before it’s too late. -
Excellent book - teen book but good for adults too
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Plot Summary-
"Empty" by Suzanne Weyn is a story about a community called Spring Valley that has to live without oil. When we think of things we can't live without, we think of food, water, and shelter, but no one really realizes the importance of oil. In this world where people had to live their daily lives without oil, they couldn't get to work anymore so many were fired or laid off which left them with no money. Heat and electricity were very hard to get without oil. Lelia is worried about surviving through winter with not only no heat, but no money since her family couldn't work anymore. Nicki and her family are falling apart from this situation. As the cold weather approaches, people are getting more desperate for their needs of oil. Will there be another option other than oil, or will Spring Valley fall apart? Read the book to find out!
Main Characters-
Nicki- scared about her family being torn apart, worried, selfish
Lelia- worried about winter, scared,
Tom- struggling to survive, dynamic character, makes dumb decisions.
Gwen- struggling to survive
Key Issues-
what the future may bring, survival.
Other Information-
I gave this book a 2 star rating because it didn't hold my interest at all and it was very hard to read since I was enjoying any of it. I felt as if I was learning about oil and what the world would be like rather than reading an actual story The back of the book was more interesting than the whole story. The story isn't really based on characters but the key issue of oil. Some of the decisions made were really dumb in this book. SPOILER---- Tom would rather spend money on gas to go see a girl (who he's not even sure likes him back) when he doesn't even have food! ---SPOILER OVER. The characters also annoyed me a little from the dumb decisions made. I recommend this book to people who aren't very interested in the story but rather the facts stated.
