A quick, exciting read that will appeal to fans of post-apocalyptic tales.
In this dystopian New Adult thriller, a woman bred to donate her body parts must flee her oppressive society before they can take her heart.
Seventeen-year-old “donor” Joan Lion has spent her entire life keeping in top athletic shape—not for her own career but for another’s. She periodically supplies parts of her superior muscles and organs to superstar athlete and Governor’s daughter Tegan Gates, one of the Alliance’s most privileged citizens. Joan peacefully trains and provides this “tax” in the hope that she’ll eventually earn enough money to purchase her own citizenship and leave her donor status behind. However, when she learns that the Governor wants to take her strong heart and lungs to further enhance his daughter’s physical capabilities, she flees for her life. She’s chased by Tax Enforcement Officer Nox, a single-minded, rule-abiding man who was responsible for Joan’s mother’s arrest and execution eight months earlier. Joan finds help in surprising places and must decide whether to actively take part in the rebellion brewing against the Alliance. If the dark cloning-for-organs plotline of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) mated with an action-packed young-adult thriller such as Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (2008), the result would resemble Beatty’s debut. Joan, in particular, bears a remarkable resemblance to Katniss Everdeen, from her athletic talents to her involuntary rise as poster child of a rebellion to her involvement in a love triangle that forces her to choose between a childhood friend and a new romantic interest. Joan comes across as frustratingly stubborn and blind to the truth at times, but these faults make her less superhuman and more relatable. Although some plot twists may be a bit too obvious, Joan’s story will still keep readers hooked to the very end.
A quick, exciting read that will appeal to fans of post-apocalyptic tales.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1484933176
Page Count: 274
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.
As Ireland devolves into a brutal police state, one woman tries to preserve her family in this stark fable.
For Eilish Stack, a molecular biologist living with her husband and four children in Dublin, life changes all at once and then slowly worsens beyond imagining. Two men appear at her door one night, agents of the new secret police, seeking her husband, Larry, a union official. Soon he is detained under the Emergency Powers Act recently pushed through by the new ruling party, and she cannot contact him. Eilish sees things shifting at work to those backing the ruling party. The state takes control of the press, the judiciary. Her oldest son receives a summons to military duty for the regime, and she tries to send him to Northern Ireland. He elects to join the rebel forces and soon she cannot contact him, either. His name and address appear in a newspaper ad listing people dodging military service. Eilish is coping with her father’s growing dementia, her teenage daughter’s depression, the vandalizing of her car and house. Then war comes to Dublin as the rebel forces close in on the city. Offered a chance to flee the country by her sister in Canada, Eilish can’t abandon hope for her husband’s and son’s returns. Lynch makes every step of this near-future nightmare as plausible as it is horrific by tightly focusing on Eilish, a smart, concerned woman facing terrible choices and losses. An exceptionally gifted writer, Lynch brings a compelling lyricism to her fears and despair while he marshals the details marking the collapse of democracy and the norms of daily life. His tonal control, psychological acuity, empathy, and bleakness recall Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). And Eilish, his strong, resourceful, complete heroine, recalls the title character of Lynch’s excellent Irish-famine novel, Grace (2017).
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780802163011
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
For readers of the once-popular dystopian YA novels who are now all grown up.
In a distant future, after the Last War when the human population became endangered, a new society formed from the ashes, strictly to optimize procreation.
But not procreation between just anyone. This society, ruled by the Illum—a mysterious authoritarian group—assigns mates to select for the best traits and to breed out defects, to grow the Elite population living in the clouds. Protagonist Emeline is a stubborn and bored young woman, working her days away on the ground as a Minor Defect—one of the class of women waiting to be approved for mating with an Elite, and hoping to never be banished further from society. Emeline’s instincts are apparently to reject the rigid decorum of her society, but she spends years trying to follow the rules set out for her, or at least dissociates enough not to challenge her way of life, until one day an elusive and charming man, Hal, walks into her office to talk about art. The same day, she is approved for mating and matched with Collin, the youngest member of the Illum, in the sort of pairing that hasn’t happened in decades. Courtship with Collin is full of luxury—fancy dinners and balls in the clouds—but also lies and days of discovering secrets kept from her, while trying to keep the Elite’s rumors and malicious Press at bay. Caught between these two men, with their own agendas, and so many unanswered questions, Emeline must decide what she wants, if she can want anything at all. With a rebellion rising in secret and the repression of the Illum close at hand, she’ll find what she’s willing to lose for the ability to choose for herself. The dystopian worldbuilding is underdeveloped at best, so get swept up in discovering truth from lies quickly before it starts to fall apart in your hands.
For readers of the once-popular dystopian YA novels who are now all grown up.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9798217090990
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
