For anyone fascinated with thoughts of omniscience and total social connection—and who isn’t?—McArthur’s debut suggests...
Montagues and Capulets, Sharks and Jets; now it’s the Mementi (with their genetically modified, storable memories) and the Populace.
At 17, Mementi Genesis Lee and friend Cora are out on the town, their primary worry escaping parental notice and keeping their memory-filled Link beads covered just enough for safety. Someone (suspicion falls on the Populace) has been stealing the Mementi’s prized objects and with them, entire lives: Without memory, “your mind would be empty, grasping at a past you no longer had.” Meanwhile, rival Mementi/Populace companies research memory options; large protests and the growing number of Populace in the Mementi’s designer city further increase community tension. And now Kalan, the “nice” Populace boy Gena keeps forgetting to remember, holds important information—can she trust him? For readers hooked on earbuds and constant social networking, the storyline should be intriguing, the ambiguities and plot twists reasonable. But it’s the sensitive handling of emotional details and the trauma of too much connection that make this a story of interest. The reactions to memory losses are painful and poignant; “I’m broken,” laments a Mementi. “I’ll never be the person I was going to be without those memories.” Well-selected Tennyson quotations set the mood for each chapter.
For anyone fascinated with thoughts of omniscience and total social connection—and who isn’t?—McArthur’s debut suggests fascinating and chilling possibilities. (Science fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62914-647-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
There are no grades in this dystopian future—only survival.
It’s graduation day for 16-year-old Malencia “Cia” Vale, and she’s hoping to be selected for The Testing in Tosu City, a necessary prerequisite to attend the University. She is, along with three other Five Lakes colony teens. Embarking on the four-part series of challenges, Cia will learn whom to trust, even as she falls in love with Tomas, one of her fellow Five Lakes colonists. Cia must pass multiple-choice exams, hands-on survival tests and team challenges before facing the final test—a wilderness trek back to the University to prove her abilities as a leader. With a gun, compass and water in her bag, Cia will trek from the ruins of Chicago back to Tosu City, depending on her wits and her trust in Tomas. Charbonneau jumps into the packed dystopia field with a mashup of Veronica Roth’s Divergent (2011) and Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, but she successfully makes her story her own. Cia’s mechanical abilities are an unexpected boon to the overall character development, and it’s refreshing not to have a female protagonist caught up in a love triangle. There’s a nicely developed relationship between Cia and Tomas and genuine suspense surrounding another candidate’s motivations and intentions. Between the ruined world and the mutants, there’s plenty of threats to keep the pages turning.
Though genre elements are in place, this page-turner earns an A for freshness. (Dystopian adventure. 12 & up)
Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-95910-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
Sanderson (Legion, 2018, etc.) plainly had a ball with this nonstop, highflying opener, and readers will too.
Eager to prove herself, the daughter of a flier disgraced for cowardice hurls herself into fighter pilot training to join a losing war against aliens.
Plainly modeled as a cross between Katniss Everdeen and Conan the Barbarian (“I bathed in fires of destruction and reveled in the screams of the defeated. I didn’t get afraid”), Spensa “Spin” Nightshade leaves her previous occupation—spearing rats in the caverns of the colony planet Detritus for her widowed mother’s food stand—to wangle a coveted spot in the Defiant Defense Force’s flight school. Opportunities to exercise wild recklessness and growing skill begin at once, as the class is soon in the air, battling the mysterious Krell raiders who have driven people underground. Spensa, who is assumed white, interacts with reasonably diverse human classmates with varying ethnic markers. M-Bot, a damaged AI of unknown origin, develops into a comical sidekick: “Hello!...You have nearly died, and so I will say something to distract you from the serious, mind-numbing implications of your own mortality! I hate your shoes.” Meanwhile, hints that all is not as it seems, either with the official story about her father or the whole Krell war in general, lead to startling revelations and stakes-raising implications by the end. Stay tuned. Maps and illustrations not seen.
Sanderson (Legion, 2018, etc.) plainly had a ball with this nonstop, highflying opener, and readers will too. (Science fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-55577-0
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 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.
