Sure to win over YA readers looking for a dangerous, dystopian adventure story balanced by emotion.
A sci-fi adventure with a sweet YA love story at its center.
Kira Donovan is enjoying high school with her boyfriend, Tristan, and her best friend, Bri. She’s had to take all these weird intellectual, psychological and physical tests, but she’s got an end-of-the-year party to look forward to. Searching for Tristan among the partygoers, she runs into Ethan, who has eyes too blue and a face too handsome to ignore. After a terrible tragedy that evening claims the lives of her friends, Kira and the school loner, Blake, find themselves on a harsh but habitable planet called Thera, which is governed by mysterious powers. There are nightly doctor’s visits, hours of computer-led classes and strange ways of getting around, like zip lines and skateboards. As roommates at school, Kira and Blake are expected to “Cleave,” or mate for life. But Blake, having grown up with the hardship of alternating between Earth and Thera, has his own agenda, one that includes revenge upon the brutal Theran leaders who destroyed his family. When Tristan, Bri and Ethan all show up, with no memory of their past lives or deaths, Kira and Blake feel the stakes of their joint mission—and of their romantic expectations—rise even higher. Author Thomason rotates the chapters through different characters’ perspectives, allowing their distinctive voices and conflicting motivations to round out her thoroughly described world. The narrative perfectly captures the cadences and nuances of teen speech, blending with a richly imagined alternate world in which breaking the rules can result in being “Exiled” to certain death—but sticking to the rules may be just as bad.
Sure to win over YA readers looking for a dangerous, dystopian adventure story balanced by emotion.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2012
ISBN: 978-1480226555
Page Count: 320
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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