‘The Walled City’ Brings Readers In for a Thrilling Ride

The Walled City Brings Readers In for a Thrilling Ride

Haley Brubaker, Staff Reporter

Action, mystery, adventure and drama– “The Walled City” by Ryan Graudin has the makings of a literary roller coaster.

The story takes place in a walled city where the worst criminals, murderers and in general bad people, including children, are trapped.  There, these people are forever stuck in a life of crime.

The story takes place through three different first-person points of view. Jin is a girl trying to make her way through the walled city disguised as a boy. Dai is a boy in the walled city trying to escape his past. Mei Yee has been trapped in a brothel for the past two years. These characters’ stories are eventually connected in some way.

The writing style could be described as quick-paced and varies from character to character.  This gives the reader a look into each personality without any character being formulaic or archetypical.

Throughout the novel, the reader starts to connect with the characters and even questions what it is that they did to become trapped in the walled city.  For example, Jin just seems like a girl trying to survive within society while attempting to find her sister. Dai just seems to be a boy trying to get along with a fate he has already accepted and Mei Yee seems to be a harmless dreamer waiting for her freedom.

But it’s not just the main characters that pull the reader in, it’s the minor characters, too.  The reader gets to see how each affects the main characters in different ways by creating hope, fear or anger.
Although the storyline and the character development are done well, this novel is incredibly brutal and is not meant for children. There are some scenes that revolve around prostitution and drug-use.

Therefore, the target audience would be a mature crowd that enjoys books that allow the reader to sympathize with the characters.

Because this novel is dark, dramatic, well-written and well-executed but for an older audience, I give this novel a 4.5 out of 5 pages.