Meticulous 14-year-old Lindsay isn't exactly thrilled about moving to the chaos that she believes is New York City. Her flighty "career college student" mom, now divorced, has dumped her on her city engineer dad, "a man who lived his life twenty minutes behind schedule and in a perpetual state of apology." Lindsay is certain that nothing better awaits her than prep school boredom and constant battles with her evil stepbrother Todd. But she is wrong. Quite by accident, Lindsay discovers an unusual boy named Talon who resides in a secret city beneath New York--a kind of underground Oz called the Downside. Talon and Lindsey are fascinated by the differences in their dual worlds and soon grow equally fascinated with each other. But when Lindsay's dad's construction project hits a snag that reveals the Downside, it is not only the blooming relationship that hangs in the balance, but the entire future of the Downside as well.

Downsiders is both funny and compelling. But while Lindsay and Talon's observations of their distinct environments is humorous (Talon compares Lindsay's French braid to a "gator's tail" and, despite Talon's explanation that "time is of low importance," Lindsay still thinks it's strange that Talon wears his watch around his ankle), Neal Shusterman also uses their relationship to illustrate how much a particular culture both shapes our identity and affects how we view people from backgrounds other than our own. This call to look beneath the surface is cleverly and subtly woven through an original story with broad appeal. (Ages 10 to 16) --Jennifer Hubert


From Publishers Weekly
In PW's words, "History and urban folklore are wittily combined in this well-wrought fantasy, centering on an alternative society that thrives undisturbed in the subterranean recesses of New York City." Ages 12-up. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-The Downsiders live in a subterranean world far beneath New York City. Taboos forbid them from going Topside, but the two worlds collide when Talon, a Downside teen, ventures up looking for medicine for his critically ill sister. There, he meets Lindsay, a Topside girl who intrigues him so much that he breaks a cardinal rule and takes her into the tunnels, showing her an amazing place filled with cast-off items-dryer lint, subway tokens, soda-can tabs-that have become useful, even beautiful. Her visit sets in motion a dangerous chain of events. Talon's friend betrays him to the authorities and Talon is sentenced to death (by being flushed through a sewer pipe). The story takes a fascinating twist when Lindsay discovers that Downside was founded about 100 years ago by Alfred Ely Beach, a 19th-century inventor and scientist. Facts about this historical figure and about the old New York subway system are blended with the fantasy until it is difficult to tell where truth stops and fiction begins. Unfortunately, there is no afterword to explain the connections and readers might miss the fun. There is also a good deal of sophisticated social satire, as Topside is seen through naive underworld eyes. Sometimes the plot lapses too far into the absurd and there are a few weak spots. The often mock-serious tone of the narrative may be lost on some readers. Overall, though, this is an exciting and entertaining story that will please fans of adventure, science fiction, and fantasy.Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Shusterman (The Dark Side of Nowhere, 1997, etc.) twines suspense and satire through this ingenious tale of a secret community living deep beneath the streets of New York City. The boundaries of Lindsay's lonely, friendless world expand suddenly when she meets Talon Angler, an oddly clad teenager who claims to have come from ``Downside'' in search of medicine for his sick little sister. Against his better judgement, Talon takes Lindsay on a forbidden tour of his own world, a subterranean maze of tunnels and chambers where he and 5,000 others live in peace and comfort, knowing ``Topside'' only from old tales and occasional peeks through street drains. Spinning Downside's origin from actual events in New York history, Shusterman creates a plausibly complex society with its own art, customs, and assumptions, then turns to view Topside culture, both through Downsider eyes and with a more general, broadly comic, vision. Despite frequent doses of social commentary, the pace never flags; their isolation breached by a Topsider aqueduct project, the Downsiders respond by cutting off all utilities (oblivious, New Yorkers respond with a huge block party), then, under Talon's leadership, filling upper levels with natural gas and setting it off. Urban readers, at least, will be checking the storm drains for peering faces in the wake of this cleverly envisioned romp. (Fiction. 11-15) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Talon lives Downside, that is, underneath New York City. There is a strict code of secrecy among the Downsiders. However, when Talon accidentally meets a young woman named Lindsay, who is a Topsider (from above the ground), the two worlds inevitably collide. They become friends and love blossoms. The punishment for Talon's lack of discretion could be death. What will happen to them? Will the entire Downsider community be discovered?


Card catalog description
When fourteen-year-old Lindsay meets Talon, who lives in the secret Downsider community that evolved in the subterranean passages of the subway built in New York in 1867, she and her new friend try to bridge the differences between their two cultures.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Imagine standing on a subway platform underneath the harried bustle of New York City. At an odd hour, the station might be empty and downright quiet — except for the drips of water and scurry of rats that echo against the station's cavernous walls. Eventually, a warm breath of air reaches toward you from the tunnel's darkness. As the moments tick by, that breath of air builds into a wind that dries your eyes and causes your hair to fly. Then the noise starts — at first just a steady percussion of clanging metal that grows louder and louder until the ringing and shudders rock you. The wind blasts with almost enough force to push you off the platform and onto the tracks. The screeching rhythm of metal against metal begins to sound in your own heart. The rush builds within you. A train is near. The anticipation of something powerful speeding toward you consumes your senses. When the steel beast finally pours into the station, there's relief and amazement. Such a glorious train! Filled with wonder, you climb inside and welcome the jolt as the beast takes off again, racing through the city's mysteries.

That is exactly what it's like to read Neal Shusterman's powerful new novel Downsiders. The story barrels down on us quickly, with building force, and then whisks us off into mysteries we never before imagined.

Anyone who thinks New York City's wonders only stretch skyward will be dazzled by the bejeweled underground world into which Shusterman leads us. Downsiders is the story of a group of people who live beneath New York City in tunnels and cavesunderskyscrapers and the subway tunnels that keep the city alive. The Downsiders, as these people are called, have never seen the sun. With pale skin and wide eyes adapted to darkness, they navigate this underground labyrinth by the breeze that wafts through the passageways. They also encrust the tunnel walls and dress themselves with the debris (diamonds, glass shards, lint, torn fabric, pop tops from soft drink cans, old subway tokens) that falls through the cracks of the world topside and lands in their realm. Though Downsiders depend on Topsiders for these fragments, Downsiders distrust the world above and keep quiet and to themselves.

Shusterman brings this underground world to life in an utterly believable way with colorful descriptions, engaging dialogue, and a lively pace. However, his magic doesn't stop there. Downsiders is more than a peek into a surprising world. It's a story about what happens when cultures clash, about how our cultural identities and worldviews are shaped, about prejudice, creativity, and hope.

What do you suppose happens when a 14-year-old Downside boy wanders up topside in search of medicine for his fevered sister? Though it's prohibited for Talon to walk the world above ground, he takes the risk in order to help his sister. While there, he meets a lonely Topsider named Lindsay — who shakes away her fear of this stranger when she realizes how desperate for help he is. An awkward, forbidden friendship ignites between the two. Talon even risks his life to bring Lindsay Downside so she can see his world.

Friendship is not all that ignites. An intricate pattern of events begins to unfold in the wake of their meeting — events that could bring an end to both of their worlds. Separately and together, Talon and Lindsay are forced to confront the ideas and customs they've come to know as truth. Psychologically, each of them shatters and dies in the commotion that builds around them. As new truths sink into their hearts, they become new people — wiser, but perhaps more vulnerable too. Beyond these personal rites of passage, readers witness the transformation Talon's Downsider culture makes as it defends itself against the Topside.

Dare I make this comparison? I will. Shusterman's Downsiders is a lively social satire that has as much to say to all of us — adults and teens alike — as Orwell's Animal Farm, and because of its exhilarating pace and modern tone, it certainly will impact younger readers more than Orwell's classic.

Hop on Shusterman's train. You'll be amazed at the wonders that lurk in worlds below.

—Cathy Young

ANNOTATION

When fourteen-year-old Lindsay meets Talon, who lives in the secret Downsider community that evolved in the subterranean passages of the subway built in New York in 1867, she and her new friend try to bridge the differences between their two cultures.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When fourteen-year-old Lindsay meets Talon, who lives in the secret Downsider community that evolved in the subterranean passages of the subway built in New York in 1867, she and her new friend try to bridge the differences between their two cultures.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In PW's words, "History and urban folklore are wittily combined in this well-wrought fantasy, centering on an alternative society that thrives undisturbed in the subterranean recesses of New York City." Ages 12-up. (Feb.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Children's Literature - Kathleen Karr

Fact: one Alfred E. Beach invented and constructed the first subway in New York before he and his masterwork disappeared from history. Theory: what if there were an underground civilization living in Beach's old tunnels? When Lindsey unwillingly arrives in New York to live with her divorced father, she feels like an outcast. Perhaps this is why she tends to notice the city's sewer system, and maybe faces lurking behind the grates...Shusterman parlays an intriguing snippet of lost history into a fantasy of contemporary New York fascinating in its implications. It's a good, fast read, too.

VOYA - Jennifer Hubert

Talon lives in New York City, but he is not your average Air-Jordan-wearing, Dawson's Creek-watching, under-eighteen club kid. Instead of navigating the hormonal halls of high school, he prowls a far more dangerous place--the sewers and subways of New York. "The Downside" is what Talon and his people call their city beneath the city, and they never mix with "Topsiders." Yet, almost against his will, Talon finds himself drawn into a friendship with one Topsider named Lindsay whom he encounters when searching for medicine for his little sister. At first, the two are able to reconcile their vast differences and eventually fall in love. Unfortunately, Lindsay's dad is a city engineer who is working on an underground aqueduct. When one of his dump trucks falls through a thin spot between the Downside and Top, Lindsay and Talon find their fragile relationship fraying as they try to keep their two worlds from colliding. Shusterman has invented an alternate world in the Downside that is both original and humorous. Instead of mythical alligators inhabiting the sewers, Shusterman imagines herds of "primitively fierce" Holsteins that escaped from a failed movie production and are now hunted by the Downsiders. His city detail is dead-on, especially his description of the subway smell, "a unique brew of select garbage fermenting in soot-sifted runoff and various body fluids." By injecting a little of the fantastic into the everyday, Shusterman, like his colleague William Sleator, ensures that this novel will be read by more than just fantasy and science fiction fans. VOYA Codes: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9).

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's May 1999 review of the hardcover edition: The intriguing notion that a hidden civilization exists beneath the surface of New York City is the basis for this imaginatively far-flung fantasy. We are introduced to three adolescent Downsiders as they catch a fallen Topsider (a homeless man) and induct him into their society. Then we meet adolescent Topsiders, one a girl named Lindsay, new to the city, living with her frequently absent father (a civil engineer), and her obnoxious stepbrother. Talon, an especially curious Downsider drawn to the world he glimpsed when he rescued the homeless man, meets Lindsay, and their forbidden friendship is the backbone of Shusterman's plot. What is the Downside and how did it begin? Will Talon be able to survive his forbidden relationship with Lindsay, even when he is executed by being flushed through a huge main sewer? There are moments of suspense in this fantasy, and a bit of romance, some heroism, flashes of humor, awe-inspiring first experiences of sunshine and snowflakes, and many other qualities sure to attract YA readers. Middle school students who don't feel a need to ask too many questions about how the Downside could exist, even in fantasy, will be the most likely readers. (Editor's note: On the inside back cover of the paperback edition, Shusterman explains what is fact and what is fiction in the novel.) KLIATT Codes: J—Recommended for junior high school students. 1999, Simon & Schuster/Aladdin, 244p, map, 18cm, 98-38555, $4.99. Ages 13 to 15. Reviewer: Claire Rosser; March 2001 (Vol. 35 No. 2)

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