THE LAST LIE

Wordsmith Letta fights for the future right of people to employ language to tell their own truth.

Forde continues the post-apocalyptic adventure begun in The List (2017) with a look at the way that struggles for what is right and who wields power collide in a new world order. Now, long after the world-changing global warming event remembered as the Melting, young Letta, wordsmith of the survivors in her part of the world, is caught up in the resistance against the established order of the surviving organized city, Ark. Amelia, the current leader of Ark, regards language as something to be controlled and used only by those in power. To that end, she has removed dozens of babies from their families and created a nursery where they will be raised without language. This dark experiment with raising feral children seems to offer homage to The Giver, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Omelas, and other worlds where safety and security are guaranteed at the price of something intrinsically human. As intriguingly ambitious as Forde’s idea is, it suffers somewhat in the extensive telling of Lette’s story of danger and flight, where often the peril results from Lette’s impulsive, believable adolescent impetuousness. Fortunately she is several times saved by Marlo, the friend she hopes will return her affection. A default white is presumed; markers of color, class, and language aren’t given.

A compelling speculative premise helmed by a realistic female protagonist.