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BRAVE NEW GIRL by Rachel Vincent

BRAVE NEW GIRL

by Rachel Vincent

Pub Date: May 9th, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-55245-8
Publisher: Delacorte

After a chance encounter with a boy, a girl discovers secrets about herself and her society.

In Lakeview, a new genome’s manufactured every year for each division—the trade labor division adds 5,000 identical girls yearly. Gardener Dahlia 16’s life changes when she’s trapped in an elevator with regulation hottie Trigger 17 of special forces, and they end up chatting—in violation of their society’s strict rules. Soon, they’re falling for each other, despite the fact that her feeling attraction to him is proof of a defect—and a detected defect means the recall not just of Dahlia, but of all 4,999 of her shared genomes; and recall means extermination. This setup part of the book is rather extended, and little pieces of the worldbuilding don’t add up, which means, as any reader of recent teen dystopias will guess, that a secret, sinister twist awaits! Despite the lack of originality, the prose moves quickly, a good thing, considering how long it takes to move out of the exposition. The uneven pacing continues up to the abrupt cliffhanger ending that offers no resolution. Although race has different meaning in a world where genomes are designed and selected for variety, and other races are presented in the background, Dahlia’s genome is white, and Trigger’s skin is described as “a few shades deeper.”

Adds nothing new to a crowded genre.

(Dystopian romance. 12 & up)