Borderliners

by Peter Høeg

Book Overview

National Bestseller Strange things are happening at Biehl's Academy when this elite school opens its doors to a group of orphans and reform-school rejects, kids at the end of the system's tether. But... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385315082
• ISBN13: 9780385315081
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Delta
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Haunts the mind

Danish author Peter Hoeg established himself with the masterful "History of Danish Dreams," a surreal, funny, haunting story that tweaked the boundaries of the real world. "Borderliners" is a bit like that, but starkly real and not very funny at all. it's haunting, surreal, and quite disturbing. Hoeg did a fantastic job with this.They are the "borderliners": Children who don't fit in, be it for not being smart enough, for having difficulties with others, or just failing to slip into the slots that society has for them. Fourteen-year-old Peter has been in institutions of one sort or another all his life, partly because of his lack of "normality," and is now going to the creepy Biehl's Academy where the "borderline" children mingle with the privileged kids, in obsessively strict surroundings. There, Peter encounters the wise orphan Katarina, who saw her parents both die -- her mother of cancer, stretching out every second of the last months of her life, and her grieving father, who tried to speed time up. And there's August, a strangely sinister child who harbors a dark secret in his past. The three grow closer, Peter falls for Katarina, and they begin struggling to break free of the strange experiments in social Darwinism being performed at the school.Given the name of the lead character -- Peter Hoeg -- I can only assume that this is at least partly autobiographical. That may be why the book is so moving and personal-feeling. Like "Danish Dreams," this book contains a lot of surreal philosophy about time, about how people try to either use or avoid the passage of time. This occasionally stops the book dead, but if you can handle that then it won't be a problem.The book is haunting and eerie, almost dreamlike. Hoeg doesn't overburden the story with too much detail. For example, when Peter and Katarina kiss for the first time, he doesn't describe it -- instead he describes the impact it has on Peter. And the dialogue is just as haunting: "What about the darkness inside people?" "The light will disperse it." "There's not that much light in the entire world." I could tell that Peter comes from Hoeg's heart, because he's so vivid in his feelings and responses. Katarina is incredibly smart and cool-headed, with thoughts beyond her years; August is both appealing and frightening, since he can be lost or violent at any given time. The supporting characters are all vivid and well-drawn, whether they are bad or good. The Academy itself has an aura of almost horrific control, an amazingly well-written place.Peter Hoeg is a master storyteller, and "Borderliners" is a book that stuck in my mind for days after I had read it. A creepy, beautifully-told story with wonderful characters.

gripping

This book was one of the most complex I've read in years, and had my full attention on multiple levels -- the characters and their tribulations are poignant, but there is an underlying theme of the interweaving of space and time that comes out in the last chapters. I'll be reading this one again -- a rare event.

An excellent follow-up to Smilla!

The writing of the great Danish novelist Peter Høeg is beyond genre classification, although this novel and Smilla's Sense Of Snow could best be described as a cross between an Ingmar Bergman screenplay and a Stephen King novel. Borderliners is a dark, semiautobiographical novel about Peter, a 13-year-old boy attending a boarding school for troubled students in Copenhagen. In a dreary atmosphere of hopelessness, strictly enforced regulations and corporal punishments, Peter befriends two very opposite fellow students: the older, sophisticated loner Katarina and a timid little boy named August. Something strange is going on, but Peter can't figure it out. Why would a school that prides itself on order accept a student like August - a schizophrenic who murdered his parents after suffering years of their abuse? "He is chaos." Katarina says. Peter soon uncovers a terrifying, Orwellian experiment in behavior modification being run by school administrators. And we Americans thought our schools were bad for stoning our kids out on drugs like Ritalin! Peter Høeg's book is a must-read for anyone who likes great literature. His prose is dark and lushly poetic. You will never forget Borderliners!

PLEASANTLY DISTURBING

Though I do not enjoy suspense-filled literature, I found Borderliners to be extremely interesting, and I literally couldn't put it down. With every page, my mind was ever more focused on the characters' plans and thoughts. Being that I was a 14-year-old attending a private school while I was reading the book, the characters seemed real to me, like people I knew. They weren't flat, and one-dimensional, but complex. The author, Peter Hoeg, did not reveal every thought. The reader can discover things by herself. The anger, remorse, and joy radiated from the actions and dialogue of Peter, Katarina, and August. The characters and setting told the story, not lengthy narrative. The plot was confusing at times, given that Mr. Hoeg intertwined flashbacks with historical tidbits, but once one gets into it, one realizes we are not SUPPOSED to know everything. That is what gives the book its real feeling. We do not know everything that is happening in our lives, either. With all of the twists and turns in the book, the disturbing images, the makeshift families, and the watchful eyes of the superiors, this book makes a wonderful weekend read for anybody, whether they are in or out of school.