The Other Side of the Island

The Other Side of the Island is a young adult novel by New York Times bestselling author, Allegra Goodman. Set in a dystopian future, it tells the story of a young girl and her friend who suspect the paradise they’re living in is not what it seems. The book was nominated for both the 2010 Dorothy Canfield Children’s Book Award and the 2011 Missouri Truman Readers’ Award. Goodman typically writes novels about family dynamics and real or imagined island settings, and The Other Side of the Island is no exception. However, this is Goodman’s first children’s novel. It’s been criticized for having a largely unresolved ending.

The novel’s protagonist, ten-year-old Honor Greenspoon, lives with her parents on Island 365. In this dystopian future, Earth is almost underwater, and there are only a handful of habitable islands remaining. Global warming melted all the polar ice caps, and countries went to war over the leftover land. Now, the survivors must rebuild society.

Honor is born during the eighth year of this so-called island “Enclosure,” and her name carries special meaning. Since H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, all children born in year eight must have names beginning with “H.” The government, or “Corporation,” led by “Mother Earth,” tells everyone that rules and continuity are all that is binding humanity together, and so they must all be obedient. This obedience is paramount to their survival.



Honor likes blending in with society. She studies hard and gives the Corporation all the answers it wants to hear. She just wants to have friends and fit in—anyone who doesn’t conform disappears. Her parents, however, don’t like conformity. When her younger brother is born, he’s named Quintilian, which is against the rules for that year. They also defy curfews and encourage their children to think for themselves and question authority. They even sneak out to see the night sky, which the Corporation keeps hidden behind fake walls and ceilings.

Honor’s best friend, a boy called Helix, also has freethinking and rebellious parents. They end up disappearing and he’s put to an orphanage. Honor stops being friends with him because she’s worried how it would look to the Corporation. This upsets her parents, who want her to have a freethinking friend her own age.

It’s not long before Honor comes home from school one day and finds her parents gone. She needs to find them, but she doesn’t know where to start. She knows of a rebel group, “Forecaster,” that leads a resistance against the Corporation. However, Honor still doesn’t want to be a part of any rebellion, because she doesn’t see anything wrong with the Corporation and its world. She doesn’t know anything other than Island 365—unlike her parents, she’s got nothing to compare it to.



Still, Honor can’t leave her parents to their fate. She must traverse the island to find the forbidden other side—an unregulated corner of her homeland, where this rebel group gathers. The Forecasters don’t believe the Corporation’s story about protecting everyone from unpredictable weather patterns and a dangerous outside world. They want freedom and autonomy.

Before she can cross the island, she and Quintilian are thrown into the orphanage. She reconnects with Helix and wonders if what the Corporation does is right after all. The book takes place over four years—as Honor gets older, she starts questioning things more and more. Still, she’s too young to do much about it. All she can do is hope to recognize her parents somewhere and learn all she can about the Corporation and the Forecasters.

Finally, Honor and Helix learn of a plot, led by the Corporation, to end life as they all know it. The specifics aren’t entirely clear, but she knows everyone’s lives are at stake. Honor knows she must find her family and stop the Corporation before it’s too late. She tracks her mother down in a bakery near what’s known as base two. Honor thinks someone simply looks very like her mother, and she’s scared to say anything. This woman, just like so many other adults on Island 365, appears drugged and in a trance. However, she communicates a message to Honor through a cake.



Honor and her family plot an escape attempt. Her parents live as orderlies now—adults forced into obedience by these drugs—but they’re aware enough to help her concoct a plan. Honor, escaping one night into the forest, stumbles across the forest outside of permitted grounds. She sees how beautiful the world is outside of the Corporation, and she knows she should fight for it.

The family and the Forecasters use the changing colors of the real sky to communicate to each other within the forest. They all find each other again and wait for the sky to change colors for the final time. When it does, it signals the start of a great war between Forecasters and the Corporation. Goodman leaves the ending otherwise unresolved.