A troubling, gripping read.
The rise of a totalitarian government derails a young woman’s future in this dystopian novel.
This action-packed drama gradually reveals how capable, smart, but apolitical Samantha “Sam” Smart ends up a dramatic symbol of resistance against newly elected President King, whose Guard Elite round up and force into submission those who dissent. As the novel opens, Sam has been captured and is being held prisoner by King’s regime. Alternating chapters juxtapose harrowing scenes in which she is tortured by her captors with flashbacks in which she is starting college, where she excels at soccer, forms a strong friendship with her teammate Kayla, and unexpectedly falls for Brady, who at first she thinks is not at all her type. The looming fascist threat is something Sam, a serious student on scholarship, would like to ignore—until tragic events force her to confront it. The novel is set in an unspecified time and mixes recognizable real-world elements such as references to Che Guevara with imagined ones, such as a hybrid internet/television service called the Medianet. Well-paced plotting will keep readers engaged despite some characters whose development seems a bit thin. Sam’s compelling and difficult family history makes her a sympathetic narrator, and the transformation she undergoes is believable. Sam and Brady are white, Kayla is black and gay.
A troubling, gripping read. (Dystopian thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-88995-549-3
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Blackwood goes from Elizabethan England (Shakespeare Stealer, not reviewed, 1998) to a Depression-Era Ozarks setting for this poker-faced tale of a self-reliant but naive teenager. Although he and his mother are dirt poor and he doesn’t remember his father, Thad is an optimist; he has a girl, a loyal bluetick hound, and a good if risky source of income, selling corn liquor for Dayman, a sour, one-armed recluse with a hidden still. He begins to get a glimmer of other lives and possibilities when Harlan James comes to town, claiming to be a land scout for tobacco growers. Harlan is well-dressed, a free spender, and free with his time, too; he allows Thad to use his fancy tackle to land a huge catfish, teaches him how to use a rifle, and even loans him clothes for a date. Blackwood knits characters together with threads of “moonshine”—not liquor, but a steady diet of stories, jokes, yarns, and outright lies’so that the story becomes a study in layers and varieties of honesty. Thad’s feeling of betrayal is sharp but brief when he finds out that Harlan is a revenue agent, stalking Dayman’s still, which literally explodes in his face. Blackwood drops plenty of hints that both Harlan and Dayman are more than they seem, so alert readers are always ahead of Thad, which adds drama; the twin revelations that Dayman is Thad’s father and that Harlan’s friendliness wasn’t all moonshine close this backwoods bildungsroman on a high note. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7614-5056-4
Page Count: 158
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
The sudden death of her twin leaves a teenager struggling with grief and her fragile sense of self in this absorbing, inwardly focused import from Sweden, part fiction, part memoir. So close are the sisters that after Cilla is killed by a motorist Tina can still hear her voice, still see her just by looking in a mirror, still hold conversations; she even finds herself taking on some of Cilla’s character traits, seeking an inner balance that she has lost. Able to describe her experiences only by switching back and forth between third person and first, Tina observes the different ways those around her grieve, and finds temporary solace in many places: reading and writing poetry, performing on stage, playing her violin, trying a brief but intense fling at summer camp, even talking to a perceptive psychologist—but unlike many such stories, there is never any sense here that the authors are running through a catalog of coping strategies, or offering trite platitudes. A year later, Tina discovers that, in forming new friendships and moving on in life, she has passed the worst of her pain, and found ways to distance herself from Cilla without losing her completely. In a smooth, natural-sounding translation, this is a thoughtful, complex reminiscence. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: March 23, 1999
ISBN: 91-29-63935-2
Page Count: 247
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
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