Will keep readers turning the pages.
A powerful teen grapples with love and truth in a post-apocalyptic landscape.
Seventeen-year-old Delta lives in a literal wasteland, deadly and unforgiving. But though she is surrounded by the dust, heat, and desiccated misery of the wastes, she has symbols branded onto her back that seem to show the way to the Verdant, a lush oasis that may or may not exist. She hides these markings, knowing—as her Ma has repeatedly reminded her—that her life would be at risk if the wrong people knew about them. When Delta returns from an expedition to find her desolate home settlement of Dead River has been raided and everyone killed or abducted, she suspects the information burned into her skin might be what the General, who ordered the attack, is after. Although Delta sets out in hopes of rescuing her family, what she discovers on her quest upends everything she thinks she knows about the brutal world she inhabits. The rule of the wastes is to trust no one, but in order to survive, Delta must challenge this foundational belief. She is aided by people she meets along her journey, including a long-missing childhood friend and mysterious others. Each encounter pushes Delta toward a deeper understanding of love and trust and the spaces in between in this intense, gritty, and propulsive novel. Main characters follow a White default.
Will keep readers turning the pages. (Dystopian. 13-18)Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-24443-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Fear the reaper(s)…but relish this intelligent and entertaining blend of dark humor and high death tolls.
Death proves impermanent in this sequel to Scythe (2016).
In a world run by the (almost) all-powerful and (almost) omniscient artificial intelligence Thunderhead, only the Honorable Scythes deal permanent death to near-immortal humans. Yet a growing contingent of scythes, feared and flattered by society and operating outside the Thunderhead’s control, are proving rather dishonorable. No longer apprentices, 18-year-olds Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch realize “the scythedom is…high school with murder” as they watch their fellow scythes jockey for power and prestige. Citra now gleans as Scythe Anastasia, questioning the status quo but also opposing the homicidally enthusiastic “new-order” scythes and their dangerous demagogue. Self-appointed as Scythe Lucifer, Rowan hunts other scythes whom he deems corrupt. Meanwhile, the existentially troubled Thunderhead questions its role as both creation and caretaker of humanity, sworn not to take life but fearing that its utopia will otherwise collapse into dystopia. Nationality and race are minimally mentioned—ethnic biases and genocide are considered very gauche—yet a population that defies death, aging, sickness, poverty, and war risks becoming bleakly homogenous, alleviated only by “unsavories” and scythes. This sequel digs deeper into Shusterman’s complex world and complicated characters, offering political maneuvering, fatal conspiracies, and impending catastrophe via a slowly unfurling plot and startling bursts of action.
Fear the reaper(s)…but relish this intelligent and entertaining blend of dark humor and high death tolls. (Science fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7245-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
Hold tight: You’ll want to stay on this nightmarish roller coaster till the end.
Trapped in an apocalyptic theme park, teens fight back.
Jay has it pretty good, all things considered, in a not-too-distant future absolutely ravaged by droughts, fires, floods, and powder-keg instability. He and his family are live-in employees of Karloff Country, a mountaintop in Virginia taken over by a billionaire family who created their own version of Disneyland as a refuge for their similarly wealthy peers to cavort away from the destruction they helped create. But when the end times loom, Jay realizes that the new guests, the Trustees, are privileged to the point of sociopathy, torturing staff over perceived slights with impunity. Jay rebels along with fellow Karloff Academy seniors Zeke and Connie and Seychelle, his crush and an heir to the Karloff fortune (Chelle’s racist grandfather, Franklin Karloff, hasn’t gotten over her White mom’s having had a biracial Black baby). They’re all fast friends; “the Black kids always find each other.” Narrated through multiple points of view, the novel features Jay’s perspective most prominently, with some interludes from his friends, all presented in Giles’ signature strong, accessible voice. With hints of Cory Doctorow, Jordan Peele, and Richard Matheson, this book stands on its own as a dystopian adventure, but the deeper metaphors around servitude, privilege, class, and solidarity mean that there’s a lot to think about as the characters reckon with their proximity to and complicity in violence both local and far-flung.
Hold tight: You’ll want to stay on this nightmarish roller coaster till the end. (Horror. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75201-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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