The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party

This book is extraordinary: graceful, imaginative writing; excellent narration; fascinating story. But for those wishing for a lightheartedly merry romp through imaginaryland, you should consider another book. The novel explores grim aspects of our nation's early history - it is gripping, but also heartbreaking. Read it! But not when you're down in the dumps.

A fantastic book. Set in Boston before and during the opening of Revolutionary War, Octavian Nothing tells the odd story of a young boy of African origin, who is raised with the finest classical education by a college of philosophers as part of a noble experiment. Yet, there is much about the world he has been kept ignorant of, including the fact that the men who would establish a new democracy prosper from the labor of slaves who look like him and have no intention of freeing them. Though this might have been a pedestrian premise in the hands of another author, Anderson's colorful characters, keen wit, and delightful use of 18th century language make for a rich, unique narrative, its fanciful-sounding tone artfully masking a moving, serious work.


Like the very best YA authors, Anderson never sells short the reader's intelligence, putting Octavian in situations where the truth isn't always pretty and questions without answers lead Octavian to even more challenging questions and ideas. Some of these are probably a little over the head of the average 13 year old (or likely to annoy the kind of overprotective parents who can't accept that their kids might be able to reason for themselves), but Anderson handles the weightier concepts with subtlety, allowing them to exert their gravitational pull on the reader's mind without interfering with the story. Which is entertaining, full of twists, poignant, and wonderfully written. The kind of book someone can read in adolescence, then enjoy again in a few years as an adult, with a different take.

If you enjoy American history from a different angle, language, and storytelling at its finest, don't overlook this one. M.T. Anderson rocks.

This is a wonderful, heartbreaking tale of a young Prince in pre-revolutionary America who comes to find out he is also a slave and the subject of an intense scientific study. Smart and insightful, it examines the best and worst of the American character and humanity as a whole. Plus,it's great as an audio book.

This book was extremely boring and the narrators voice was really irritating. One of my least liked books on Audible.

Although I have been a member of Audible for three years, this is the first review I've felt compelled to give. Octavian Nothing is a powerful--and powerfully humane--story about the triumph of the individual spirit in the face of soul-withering oppression. Although fiction (and YA at that!), it is grounded in and illuminates a little-known chapter in the now near-mythological period of the colonies, as our nation-to-be tests the boundaries between loyalty and independence and finds itself on the eve of revolution. Give the book time--no small request, of course, in the digital age. Octavian Nothing unfolds slowly but surely, aided in no small part by Peter Francis James's wonderfully sure narration. By the end you will be fully in the grips of a master writer and storyteller. No spoilers here, but there are parts that are purely heartbreaking; I was late to work on more than one occasion just to hear how things concluded.

And while you're at it, go ahead and download the second volume, which fulfills the promises of this one.

I just couldn't. I just felt nothing for the characters, and in the end, was unable to finish it.