It would have been really easy for Warchild to fall into the trap of being either a story about humankind valiantly fighting the evil aliens or the noble aliens resisting persecution by the humans (i.e. He winds up on the alien planet and is trained as warrior in the fight against humanity. When Jos finally manages to get away, it is because he is kidnapped yet again, this time by an alien sympathizer.

A lot of what of what happens to Jos is implied, not out right stated, but the effects ripple through the rest of the book. This section of the book (and this section only) was told in second person, which was a brilliant decision on the part of Lowachee. In that short span of pages, Jos’s home trading ship is attacked, his parents killed, and Jos himself kidnapped by an abusive pirate captain. The first thirty pages of the book are some of the most difficult. Basically, this is a coming of age story from hell. Yet, Warchild is an intensely character based novel centered around Jos, who ages from eight to eighteen over the course of the book. There are no clichés in Lowachee’s writing, no fixed molds: she managed to surprise me at every turn of the corner, and I appreciate that greatly. One of the details I loved more is the way characters (all of them) change and evolve, not only inside the story’s framework, but also from the reader’s point of view”. There was never a single moment when I did not feel a deep sympathy for him, and the main reason is that Karin Lowachee's writing – with its plain, pared-to-essentials narrative – never indulges in long descriptions or graphic details, but rather carries her readers along on an endless stream of powerful emotions. This is Jos' main attraction as a character: his extreme fragility, hidden by the hard, aggressive shell he's built around him.

Jos' dreadful experiences aboard the pirate ship have left a permanent mark on his spirit, most notably in his inability to trust: once he is asked to play the difficult role of spy, his inner contradictions come to the surface in a very dramatic way, enhanced by the doubts that start plaguing him about the possibility of being a pawn in the hands of those he has come to view as his rescuers. Young Jos Musey's story is a coming of age tale painted in dark colors: from his capture by the pirates who have attacked and destroyed his ship, to his rescue by alien sympathizers in conflict with the Earth government and from here to his role as double agent for those same sympathizers, Jos' life is a harsh one, fraught with difficult choices and the constant pull of conflicting drives and emotions. Show More swamp, but this was not the case.

Warchild by Karin Lowachee