Review: Over The Rainbow, Brian Rowe

Over the Rainbow by Brian Rowe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A bit of a weird one to review. This book is like Jurassic Park meets The Wizard of Oz. It was...odd, to say the least. That being said though, it was rather enjoyable and very amusing in spite of being very silly and completely unbelievable in certain aspects.

I get that the main female character, Zippy (cute name, much better than Zipporah) is supposed to be very small, but I find it very hard to believe that a seventeen year old girl can be small enough to hide in a suitcase and go in a cargo hold on a plane at an international airport, even in 1999. That being said, the story is funny enough to over look things like that, and Zippy is a very likeable character. Its very easy to sympathise with her and why she hid herself in a suitcase.

Zippy has fallen in love with her chat buddy Mira and her homophobic God fearing father ships her off to anti-gay camp. Mortifying for Zippy. So she hides in a suitcase and escapes on a different plane. Then the plane crashes, and everything becomes weird. Zippy meets two survivors, three, counting Judy the dog. And there are dinosaurs. Dinosaurs. The rapture has happened, and everything's gone to pot.

Zippy has escaped to go to Seattle and find Mira. So that's what she does with the help of her friends, a boy she meets who also survived the plane crash, Frankie, and another survivor, the older kindly Mr Balm. Along the way they meet a little girl, Elle, also a survivor and continue on to Seattle to find Mira.

The characters were fun, the dialog was snappy and witty and the dinosaurs were immensely entertaining. The ending was sweet. A fast, fun read.

Thank you Netgalley for approving my request to view this title.