It was revisited again in a dream sequence. This was fully described and quite graphic. I was totally shocked by the gratuitous violence depicting a woman who had been cut open and her guts were hanging out. My 11 year old and I loved The Apothecary but were terribly disappointed by this book. Wartime atrocities and violence, including torture and the massacre of a character's family, are presented, often in flashback, in non-graphic ways that still make clear the full horror.

Some heroic characters as well as villains meet a violent death, while others are kidnapped, imprisoned, and endangered. One character's father is cheating on her mother with his secretary different cultural and family expectations cause trouble as well as mutual enlightenment. As with The Apothecary, much of the plot involves efforts to keep the atomic bomb from falling into bad hands, with attendant ethical complexities and character development. In 1954, two years after the events of the first book, Janie Scott and Benjamin Burrows, son of the mysterious Apothecary, are now 16 and continents apart, trying to reconnect.

Parents need to know that The Apprentices, sequel to Maile Meloy's outstanding young-reader debut, The Apothecary, is a fascinating brew of fantasy, history, teen romance, and life-and-death adventure. The 'forgetting wine' that played such an important role in The Apothecary returns.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide. A seagoing couple's provisions include a small amount of opium, which they say is for toothache. Benjamin's telepathy-enhancing potions) adult characters consume alcoholic beverages, and members of an island tribe force one of the teens to consume large amounts of kava. a mushroom than speeds language learning, and some man-made, e.g. Many characters ingest magic substances (some natural, e.g.

The apprentices maile meloy