Winter's End by Jean-Claude Mourlevat

I was pretty excited about finding this book. It looked Hunger Gamesish (the book that all books must live up to in my classroom)- children fighting against a power hungry government.

Winter's End starts out very strong, two young girls who are living in a boarding school. A boarding school where there are rules for everything and anyone caught breaking the rules doesn't get punished themselves, but instead gets someone else punished. When the two young girls, Helen and Milena meet two young boys from the male boarding school the young adults find their lives changing in ways they never could imagine. The four manage to escape their dreary lives and fight to make their way to a secret resistance headquarters all the while trying to stay out of the hands of the Phalange- the government who are determined to keep them locked away and will stop at nothing- even murder- to keep these children away from the rest of civilization.

The story is full of excitement and adventure from beginning to end. I really liked the small bits of fantasy thrown into the book. There are dog-men (dogs who dress and can talk in simple terms) and horse-people (sort of like centaurs) that are very believable. My one criticism is that the Phalange isn't really explained well, it is hard to know why there is such a hatred for this government- this book reads like the second in a series- but it isn't.

While this book wasn't as compelling as the Hunger Games or The Maze Runner, it was a good read. I think it would appeal to both boys and girls.