If you're like us, you've read lots of YA books where young heroes and heroines fight the old people in charge to figure out who they are. So it can be a shock to pick up Rainbows End, where just about everyone is a senior citizen: Robert, Xiu, Lena, and even Alfred Vaz are all eligible for the senior discount.
But in the future, being old doesn't mean you're eating dinner at five p.m. All of these seniors are active—and they face a fight that would fit right in with many a YA book: they have to figure out where they fit in a world that doesn't quite welcome them.
Questions About Old Age
- There are a lot of old characters, but they aren't all old in the same way. (Thanks, medical miracles.) How many different types of "getting old" does Rainbows End show us?
- Are there any benefits to old age in Rainbows End?
- Many of our major characters are old. But what about the youngsters, Miri and Juan? Do they face a similar struggle as the oldsters? What about the adultsters like Alice and Bob?
- How do you relate to the oldster characters in Rainbows End? Are they very different from you? Or do they have some identifiable issues?
Chew on This
Rainbows End demonstrates how memories may be both the valuable thing and a trap that we sometimes have to escape.
In the future, the generation gap will get bigger and bigger because old people won't keep up with technology. We'll have thirty-year-olds forced into retirement.