This book is wonderfully deep. It's for teens--middle and high school. I'd say older readers, except that this 6th grader in our book group seemed to understand it and enjoy it as much or more than the older readers. I could tell you what the book is about, but it's one of those books that you can know what it's "about" without knowing what it's about. . .
The basic plot is that some sort of plague has wiped out most of England's population (it's set in a sort of parallel universe of the Victorian period. At the same time, a giant tidal wave has destroyed a particular island nation. Only one boy (Mao) has survived, because he was off on an island undergoing his test to become a man. He has left his boy soul on the island, so he arrives back at the Nation, not a boy, not a man, with no soul, to bury the dead bodies of everyone he has ever known. The wave also wrecks a ship carrying the new heir to the throne (although she doesn't know she's the heir, since she doesn't know that the 139 people ahead of her in the line of succession have died of plague). Ermintrude (who decides to change her name to Daphne) is the only survivor on the ship; she meets Mao and together they try to fathom the tragedy and rebuild their lives, as more survivors begin to arrive on the island.
The book is about identity, cultural heritage, language, racial prejudice, religion, friendship, love, and grief. And underlying all of it is Terry Pratchett's quirky sense of humor--especially poignant in this dark context. Definitely worth reading.
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