THE SILENCED

In a world with more than a passing resemblance to Orwell’s 1984, a war has ended in the creation of a police state bent on crushing dissent, run by the Protectorate of the Zero Tolerance Party. Living with her father and brother in a “social readaptation community,” following her mother’s execution for treason, Marena attends a school where youth are brainwashed to serve the state. After a teacher is arrested, Marena and two friends meet in secret to plan resistance. Meanwhile, a highly placed school official begins to question the Protectorate and its objectives as the resistance grows and the community is placed under heightened surveillance and control. As individual freedoms are eliminated, Marena looks to her mother’s choices for guidance in making her own, and in deciding how to respond to an evil she is powerless to overthrow. This otherwise tautly plotted novel is weakened by a confused presentation of the Protectorate and its aims. Does it seek to create a master race through Third Reich eugenics or to stamp out difference by destroying human individuality altogether? Ripe for discussion. (Fiction. 12+)