SNOWFLAKE

A troubled teenager pursues a radical plan to head off climate change in Jeon’s YA thriller.

Eighteen-year-old Ben Wallace remembers everything he’s ever experienced or read. It may seem like a superpower, but in practice, it’s a curse—one that requires him to see a therapist and to cathartically record his thoughts in a journal to cope. These methods aren’t enough, however, as he becomes increasingly unsettled by stories about world events. Wildfires threaten his Los Angeles home, the world’s future is being destroyed by climate inaction, and Ben’s wealthy neighbors—and the U.S. government—just ignore the problem. His classmates at school seem more concerned with selfies and social media than they are with environmental issues. He soon becomes radicalized, particularly after his asthmatic younger sister, June, ends up in the hospital due to air pollution. It isn’t long before an idea takes root in his head and refuses to go away: In order to save the world, he’ll have to kill the man who’s hurting it the most—the climate change–denying president of the United States. He finds a sympathetic ear in John Hale, a former Navy SEAL who now works as Ben’s STEM teacher. Will the educator be able to stop Ben’s drift into extremism? Ben’s character feels believable, and most readers will find his frustrations over the facts of climate change—which he’s incapable of forgetting or ignoring—to be warranted. The book is formatted as if it’s Ben’s personal journal, and as a result, the narration contains more than a bit of hyperbolic teenage petulance: “Above us, the museum, crapped onto a beheaded mountain by a billion dollars, squats behind a burka of smoke.” He rants against “Fakebook” and “Insta-Lie,” pornography, hunting, and other targets—so much so that when he finally takes action—ill-advised as it may be—the reader won’t be able to help but feel a dark sense of relief. It all builds quite compellingly to a conclusion that seems designed to court controversy. For the most part, though, readers will be left with a sense of hopeless exhaustion.

A topical and angst-ridden, if unsubtle, novel that pulls no punches.