Desperate to escape their bleak existence in Cloud’s Rest, a dystopian city built in the sky and governed by oppression, four teenagers escape to the ground below, an unrecognizable landscape ravaged centuries earlier by an earthquake and consequent tsunamis.
The four hope to find sanctuary with a community of like-minded individuals rumored to reside in the devastated environment, but instead, they encounter vicious, mutated animals and a tribal society more brutal than the one they’ve left behind…
Sky High is primarily a YA novel, but it works on several levels, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It has narrative commonality with an earlier book of Breedlove’s I read*, but Sky High has a leaner and less supernatural storyline than Screamcatcher.
Seventeen and eighteen-year-olds Toby, Maria, Justice, and Remy are, overall, well-depicted and engaging, especially Toby, the group’s natural leader. He is a single-minded, self-aware character, and Breedlove nicely balances his introspective maturity with flashes of teenage vulnerability.
Additionally, Breedlove neatly covers many of the narrative’s eventualities with the quartet’s personalities and skillsets without appearing too convenient. Remy and Maria occasionally slide into stereotypes, and Maria is a touch jarring in places. Nonetheless, the group has a close, credible dynamic that is established early on and which never becomes tokenistic or cloying.
Sky High has a narrative simplicity yet a focused intensity that ensures it’s one of those novels that finds the reader eagerly galloping to the next chapter. The regime of Cloud’s Rest is implied rather than demonstrated, and it’s the teenagers’ perilous journey through the decimated, hostile terrain that dominates the book.
Although Breedlove has spared no imaginative expense in creating the post-apocalyptic topography, he does so with restraint and deceptively precise visual language. This, together with the sharp, visceral effects the teens experience due to the inhospitable ground and the arduous trekking, makes for immersive reading.
It never appears far-fetched, ludicrous, or dense. Instead, it’s eerie and quietly chilling due to the creeping sense of disquiet that Breedlove weaves through the narrative. The area the teenagers traverse is the Pacific Northwest/Oregon coastline, and Breedlove gives several poignant nods to the town of Eugene and well-chosen, thought-provoking anachronisms.
The feral hybrid animals that roam the wastelands are nastily plausible, and Breedlove doesn’t over-populate them, which enhances their skulking fearfulness.
The story is pacey. Breedlove’s prose fizzes with a tense, electric energy. He conjures a constant stream of challenges for the group to contend with, some unexpected, some not, but they never become overwhelming. One of the anticipated consequences of the teenagers’ abscondence is the dogged pursuit of them by Cloud’s Rest security, adding another fraught element to their quest.
Lieutenant Branson Newman leads the chase with two sidekicks, Foster and Trimble. Branson and Toby are engaged in an implicit psychological battle, and additionally, a subtle yet intriguing whisper of divergence surrounds the Lieutenant from early on.
The tribe that the group finally encounters, the Ripping Claw Clan, is a primitive, barbaric collective. A couple of them demonstrate flickers of compassion to the teens, but predominantly, they’re savage and emotionally devoid.
It might have been beneficial for another tribe to have been briefly met as a comparison; others are referenced. However, Sky High lends the impression of being the first in a series, and Breedlove has given himself material for further books.
Sky High is a well-written, intelligent, and entertaining post-apocalyptic thriller that deserves a broader audience than YA. Highly recommended.
*Click here for my review of Screamcatcher: Web World.
