PREPPED

A teen raised in a doomsday community prepares to leave.

While other kids were hanging out, going on field trips, and thinking about prom, Becca Aldaine was being taught to live in a bunker and receiving training in survival skills such as fly-fishing, lock-picking, firefighting, and handling medical emergencies—along with the occasional, all-too-realistic disaster drill. Becca comes from one of the original families in a community of doomsday preppers waiting and training for the end of the world. With college just months away, the high school senior has to hold out only a little bit longer before she can cut ties with the small-town Ohio group. When an accident occurs and Becca’s plans for leaving start to seem out of reach, she finds an unexpected ally in Roy Kang, the boy whom she’s been pretending to date for the last 5 years to appease her father. It turns out Roy is not in fact a mindless follower, and the two like-minded teens might just have found confidants in one another. Eventful and quip-filled, this doomsday read veers a bit light on character development but is high on emotion. Debut author Mangle explores her characters’ struggles around parental expectations and identity—all while living with the pressure and trauma of community brainwashing. Most characters are presumably White; Roy and his family are Korean American.

It’s not the end of the world, but it’s high drama nonetheless.