The Dead of the Night by John Marsden

In The Dead of the Night, Ellie and her five friends decide to go back to Wirrawee to see if Corrie and Kevin are fine and try to get more information about the Showground. After sharing what they found out they decide to go to see what's on the other side of Hell and hopefully find  more people. 

This is the second book in the Tomorrow series. It's more violent and more adventurous than the first. They kill more soldiers and there are more attacks. Because of this, Ellie feels guilty and feels 'shadows' following her. 'I live in the light, but carry my dark with me' is how she describes what she is feeling. The group continuously change from young and naive teenagers to more experienced and strategic people. They are more careful and aware of the situation that they are in. They are already giving each other advise on how to keep calm when they are attacking and aren't as clueless as they were in the start of the first book. 'When you're scared you can either give in to the panic and let your mind fall apart, or you can take charge of your mind and think brave.'


Ellie constantly asks herself what is right and wrong. She comes to the conclusion that in war everything is both wrong and right. She gives a detailed description of how they are feeling in every different situation of the novel. The group starts to think more about their lives and the future, 'What's the future? It's a blank sheet of paper and we draw lines on it, but sometimes our hand is held, and the lines we draw aren't the lines we wanted.' 


Warning: Spoilers Below!!!!!

Why does Chris die?
In the end of the book, they find Chris's dead body. He died because of a car accident that was caused because he was drink driving. This is an important part of the book because it shows problems that some people are going through nowadays; alcohol, drugs, drink driving and depression. The group understood how serious the war was and knew that they all might eventually die as a result of of it but Chris's death was different.  After all they had gone through, he died for a stupid reason, something that could have been avoided.  

Ellie described another side to the depressed, alcoholic Chris. He could also be sensitive and caring and wrote meaningful poems. This highlights how much potential he had. Who he could have been if alcohol hadn't ruined his life. None of them were close to Chris but they all saw how much potential was lost for a silly cause. His death didn't come as a surprise to me because throughout the book he was slowly distancing himself from the group, slowly killing himself with alcohol and depression.