In The Finisher many of the battles that Vega Jane fights are against male fighters who are pitted against her to stop her and control her as she is seen as a problem to society.

If The Finisher could be compared to another novel aimed at young adults then it would be The Hunger Games, but this is not to say that it copies what that book is. It’s interesting that Vega Jane is a character who is fighting to be herself and while we should probably see Morrigone as an evil character there is an ambiguity there, as there is with many of the truly powerful in Wormwood.

Most of the battles in The Finisher are not in fact physical battles but more a battle of wits between Morrigone and Jane. Constantly Vega Jane is referred to as “Female” as all of the other women are, they are demeaned and put in their place as the weaker sex, but this is not something that Vega Jane accepts and is also contradicted by the fact that one of the most powerful characters in the story Morrigone is herself female and a formidable foe. It’s not hard to see that The Finisher is a story about a girl coming of age, but it’s also a book that focuses on the fact that just because the main character is female this doesn’t make her any weaker than any man. Little does she know that in investigating the truth she will unlock not only her destiny but also make enemies stronger than any she even realise existed. When the council, the controllers of Wormwood say that Herms has been taken by monsters from the Quag though and a wall must be built to protect the people from them Vega Jane begins to question just what Wormwood is. When she finds a map left for her by Herms she realises there is a way out of Wormwood, something she never thought possible. The Finisheris the story of Vega Jane a “Finisher” who witnesses her mentor Quentin Herms escaping the only home they know, Wormwood and escaping to the unknown and dangerous wilderness known as the Quag. The Finisher by David Baldacci is a new fantasy novel that looks at the paranoia and fear about the outside world and creates a story of rebellion where one strong girl fights to escape a world that looks to restrict her and if anything stop her becoming the woman she is destined to be. Examples of this are novels like Twilight, where no matter what we think about the quality of the book it’s still about a young woman finding love with a creature that you’d not really expect it to be found, it is a fight against the “normal”. When fiction is aimed at young adults the themes used are a lot of the times about rebellion, a bout fighting to be independent and to have choice.

Baldacci the finisher