THE KILL FACTOR

Youthful offenders face a deadly reality show in a social media–driven future.

Sixteen-year-old Emerson Ness doesn’t know who lit a match while she carried out a robbery, but she was caught at the scene and faces arson and manslaughter charges. She’s offered a spot on a reality game show promising fame and freedom to the winner—and life in solitary for everyone else. Desperate to provide for her younger brother, Kester, a deaf tech prodigy, Emerson caves and accepts. In this future world, class is literally stratified: The poor, like the Nesses, live in the Burrows beneath the elite Topsiders’ homes, and riches are awarded based on one’s social media follower count. The game show, Retribution Island, hinges not just on challenges but on popularity; Emerson knows her only hope is competing well enough to avoid public votes, especially since some of her fellow competitors are polished Topsiders, rather than Burrowers who committed crimes of desperation driven by inequalities in the system. The social commentary, openly discussed and integral to the plot, never gets in the way of the action or the story’s flow. Once the show’s true nature is revealed, the brutal action hits in viscerally grotesque sequences. Even the less sympathetic competitors are humanized, with the book highlighting traumas. Emerson reads white; names signal some ethnic diversity in the supporting cast, and a fat character is portrayed in a body-positive way. The ending screams for a sequel.

Compulsively readable; stands out among other works with similar premises.