Now that Finn has Escaped, he thought everything would be different, but the Realm outside is no paradise. He’s supposed to be a long lost prince, but doesn’t remember anything about his past — and out of nowhere, another boy has appeared, claiming to be the very same prince. With no way to prove his claim, he, Claudia, and the scholar Jared can only hope to restore communication with Incarceron and find the missing Warden.

Things inside Incarceron aren’t stable, either. Attia and Keiro realize Finn either can’t or won’t get them out, and search for their own Escape. And even Incarceron itself is changing, seeking an Escape… but how can a prison escape itself? And exactly who, or what, is Sapphique?

This is the end of the series, and I can’t discuss it without spoilers, so beware! Uncut spoilers under the cut.

I absolutely loved Incarceron when I read it last year, and was very much looking forward to the story’s conclusion, so I picked up Sapphique pretty quickly after it came out in the U.S. In the end, I simultaneously enjoyed and was disappointed by it.

The big problem, for me, was that in the rush to explain and resolve what was happening with the world, all of the characters got lost. I really loved the worldbuilding in Incarceron: it was a creative dystopia with hints of both scifi and fantasy, intricate and exciting. It elevated the book from a good story to a great one, by playing a major role in the story. It was an antagonistic force in and of itself, another element for the characters to overcome — but it was a story about characters, about Finn and Claudia and their struggles. The problem is that in Sapphique, the worldbuilding totally takes over. The book is about the world, its backstory and the ramifications of things that happened generations ago, and everything that happens to the actual characters feels like windowdressing.

Case in point: the plot with Finn and the Pretender. It ought to be a big deal. There’s a fight over the throne, the evil, scheming queen is going to kill Claudia, there’s a civil war. That all sounds dramatic in theory, but when you get down to it, it does absolutely nothing. None of that in any way builds towards the book’s actual climax, and the climax renders the whole thing moot. The queen just dies. The war just stops. That doesn’t happen because Claudia and Finn outsmart them or outfight them, it happens because of stuff that Incarceron itself does, which they have no control over and didn’t even know was going to happen.

The characters inside the prison do a bit better than those outside. At least Keiro and Attia are working towards something, as they try to figure out what to do with the Sapphique’s glove. Though neither of them exactly makes things happen, at least it doesn’t feel like their whole storyline is futile — and they’re a pretty likeable duo. (Well, Attia is likeable; Keiro is kind of a terrible person, but darned charismatic and way more fun to read about than, say, Claudia.)

Also, it just reads as a weird, weird choice to me that in a young adult novel, featuring four teen protagonists… the only one who figures things out and directly causes anything to happen in the wizened mentor. I like Jared fine as a character, and at least he’s got a bit of depth to him, but I was seriously let down that out of everyone in the book, it wasn’t Claudia or Finn who solves things at the end. Nope, Jared does it. Seriously?

Basically the worldbuilding (with one caveat I explain in the next paragraph) was great, but Sapphique was lacking a peg to hang all that coolness on. Without a driving story like Finn and Claudia had in the first book, it all felt like a bit of a mess.

As for that world building caveat, I was pretty baffled by what happened with the Realm. I didn’t have the impression from the first book that the buildings themselves were illusions, but okay, I can buy that some kind of super high tech made the ruins functional, so they (and other random gadgets and whatnot) fell to pieces as soon as the power was gone. But I also thought that things like swords and banners and whatnot had been made “in Era,” meaning by peasants with no technology, the same way they would have in the 1800s. So how come all of those crumpled to dust, too? It was a relatively small thing, but it really baffled me and threw me out of the story at a pretty intense moment.

So with all that, like I said, I still enjoyed the book. Like Incarceron, it was well paced and exciting, and certainly picked up as it went on. As I mentioned, Attia and Keiro were enjoyable, and so was Finn (though Claudia was pretty unpleasant). The world inside Incarceron itself was still very cool, interesting and twisted, and the whole concept of the series is unique in the worlds of YA and dystopias. Those good things weren’t quite enough to save the book as a whole, though, so it earns three and a half cupcakes, though I’d say the two books taken together are a decent four.

After dying in a car crash, Lia’s brain was downloaded into a mech body — but things aren’t going so well for the mechs these days. After a fellow mech with her face went on a killing spree and a group called the Brotherhood devoted itself to destroying all mechs, Lia’s been forced to try and do some good PR — but it isn’t enough. Someone’s created a mech virus that shuts down and erases anyone infected. Now, to save all the remaining mechs, she has to team up with extremist Jude, her estranged younger sister… and the one person who hates her most in the world.

Since this is the last book in a trilogy, it’s kind of impossible to respond to without spoiling. So: major spoilers after this cut!

I reviewed Skinned, the first book in this trilogy, shortly after it came out, and read but totally failed to review the second. Whoops. As for the third… well. The more series I read, the more empathy I feel for the folks who write them. There are so many expectations built up that there’s no way to satisfy every reader out there, let alone wrap up every single thread. And unfortunately, for me, Wired falls somewhat towards the let-down ending side of the scale. That is to say, I really enjoyed the book as a book; but as the ending of a series, I was disappointed.

My favorite thing about Wired by far was Zo, Lia’s younger sister. The first book gives them an interesting dynamic — Zo was supposed to be in the car that crashed, but Lia had agreed to go instead, so Zo had to deal with the guilt of living while Lia changed (or died, depending on your view). They fought all the time growing up, but Zo obviously came to hate Lia as a mech. Lia spent most of the second book away from her family, but in this one she’s reunited with them, and the Big Family Revelation changes her dynamic with Zo entirely. I absolutely loved Zo in this book, and the relationship between the sisters was great.

The thing is, though, the Big Revelation also presents a totally reversal in the characterization of Lia’s parents. Through the first two books, her mother is shown as someone weak-willed who cries a lot; her father is strict, believes in hard work and contribution to society, and detests cheaters and thieves. As much as I enjoyed getting to see Lia’s mom kick some butt near the end, the same reveal that led to Lia and Zo’s relationship, the problem was, I wasn’t convinced by the event that flipped everything on its head. It seemed less like the reveal of an amazing secret and more like a narrative convenience.

More disappointing for me was the way the climax played out. It pulled from one element earlier in the book, which, as I’d read it, had me scratching my head a little. While it worked fine, it hadn’t felt as connected to the story overall, so when the climax played out I looked back and went, “Ah ha, that was why that random discovery was made.” But the climax itself is basically the very end of the book and happens very abruptly. As I reached it, I was shocked by how few pages there were left, because it seemed like there was still so much to resolve. And… well, very little actually got resolved.

What I mean is that, while the story ends, aside from happening very suddenly, it doesn’t feel like the series’ major question is answered or its arch is concluded. The central question in the series is about Lia’s personhood. Plenty of people think she’s just a machine, programmed to think it’s a person, but of course as readers we’re with her on the journey and side with her, that she is a person. Instead of ending that conflict, it’s side-stepped; the events that happen are all exciting, but there’s no sense that it tied back into the earlier question — and it’s an ending where Lia transforms, literally, from the character she’s been for thee books into something else entirely.

So I wasn’t thrilled. The book was a fast, interesting read, and the idea of the computer virus shutting down the mechs was interesting. But the book was probably the weakest of the three, and gets three and a half cupcakes, though the series as a whole is a solid four.

In the hugely anticipated final book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss finds herself at the center of the growing rebellion. But even in isolated District 13 there are politics she must navigate and dangers she must guard against – not to mention Peeta is still a prisoner of the Capitol. Can Katniss be the rebels’ Mockingjay without becoming a pawn in someone else’s game? And what will the cost of independence be?

Warning: there will be CRAZY spoilers after the cut.

Jess: Well, I’ll say this right off the bat: it’s a brilliantly written book. I got it at a midnight event, went home to sleep, then woke up and didn’t move from my bed until I had finished it. I don’t think I even took a bathroom break. It’s incredibly gripping and exciting; even when you’re devastated by what’s happening on the page, you can’t put it down.

Becky: Ditto. I made the mistake of reading the first few chapters before sleeping, and tossed and turned all night because my brain wouldn’t turn off. Taken as a whole, I love this trilogy. And that’s why it pains me to say that when push comes to shove, I didn’t like the ending. The book had me for at least 3/4 of the way through, even up through the climax — in fact, the climax of the team making its way through the Capitol was one of my favorite sections of the book. But then you hit Prim’s death, and bam. I’m done.

Jess: Agreed. In part that’s because I kept waiting for Katniss to do something, to have any idea of the bigger picture, to make choices about the future of her world. But she never really does. It was a problem in the second book, too, but I thought at least it might be remedied by the end of the third…but no. Katniss is played all the way through, and all she gets to do in both Catching Fire and Mockingjay is fire an Arrow of Significance without really understanding the consequences or dealing with the fallout.

Becky: There are actually a bunch of facets there that didn’t work for me. Like the fact that as soon as Katniss sees Prim die, she goes comatose… actually, she spends a lot of the book that way. I absolutely understand why; the story is about war and Katniss is a victim of war. It would’ve been extremely cheap for Collins not to show the consequences. But in a first person narrative, if your narrator is unconscious or otherwise taken out of the picture, so is your reader. I had been less than thrilled when Katniss broke down over Peeta earlier in the book and so he was rescued by other people, entirely off-page, but moved past it because the story is so compelling. But having Katniss go completely comatose at the book’s climax? I couldn’t pass that one over. She didn’t do anything at that point, except eventually get the Arrow of Significance, and after that she didn’t even know she was on trial, let alone participate or do anything to deal with rebuilding Panem. So a) that’s disappointing when you have a character who has (in most ways) been so active for two-and-a-half-ish books; and b) that’s not great storytelling, which is disappointing from Collins, who is usually an amazing storyteller.

Jess: Though I’m loath to ascribe motives to writers – how the hell do I know what they’re thinking, right? – I can’t help feeling like Collins was so intent on showing us the horrors of war that her storytelling suffered for it. Your mileage may vary, of course, but Becky and I are both structure nuts, and I think the structure of the book fell apart with Prim’s death. From a storytelling perspective, Prim’s death was completely redundant – we already saw Prim die when Rue died, since Rue was always essentially a Prim stand-in.

Furthermore, Katniss’s primary motivation from the very beginning of the first book was to save Prim. She ultimately failed to do this, obviously, since Prim died – but by voting in favor of having a Hunger Games with Capitol children, she’s failed all Prims everywhere. And yes, in war, children and loved ones die, and there’s nothing you can do, and it’s senseless and horrible and there’s no narrative cohesion. But in terms of a story…the protagonist failed at her primary goal in every sense, hooray?

Becky: I also feel like the book couldn’t quite pick a moral and that was part of the problem. You have a great scene of Katniss talking an enemy soldier out of being an enemy, and talk about forgiveness and rebuilding as the way forward and the way to prevent future tragedies. But you also have the moral of “war is hell, and destroys everything and everyone.” Which is a fine message, if depressing, but the two are pretty direct opposites. And because Katniss herself is too traumatized to be part of the rebuilding at the end, all you end up with is the idea that everything is hell, and there’s nothing you can do to fix it, because there’s nothing Katniss can do. I don’t know if that’s what Collins intended (though I hope not), and again, it certainly isn’t wrong to write a moral I happen to disagree with… but as a reader, I just found it too upsettingly horrible.

Jess: Exactly. If the books are supposed to be about breaking the cycle of violence and hatred, they need to show the cycle broken, and we have no faith that it will be. The only major character who seems to be in favor of that is Peeta, and he was never part of that cycle to begin with. Instead we’re left with broken Katniss, broken Haymitch, and some incredibly minor character we have a vaguely positive feeling about left in charge of the government.

Becky: So yes: the ending had its issues. But it also had bright spots. Like Peeta! As I’ve said about a billion times on this site, I’m not a particularly shippy reader, and I was never even remotely interested in the romance — it seemed very much Not The Point. But as a character, in and of himself, Peeta was wonderful through the whole series, and shone in the third book. His arc was wonderful and sad. When he was rescued and everything went all to hell, I was genuinely upset. I was worried about him! Like he was a real person I could somehow rescue and cuddle! Because he needs all the cuddles. Except for those reserved for Finnick, of course.

Jess: Oh, absolutely. In general, the characters were brilliantly drawn. Peeta and Finnick broke my heart, Haymitch was wonderful, and though I didn’t like the fact that Prim died, I liked that she was allowed to become more of a person in this book instead of a delicate flower Katniss had to protect. I also thought Gale was very well done. I pretty much can’t stand Gale (and I hated the love triangle), but his character arc works so well.

Becky: And newcomer Boggs was great, too. There were so few genuinely good people in the series that it was nice to see someone new who just wanted to do the right thing. And Cinna, while he obviously never appeared, was still a great (and very felt) presence. I actually missed him terribly as a person, if only because, looking back, he was one of the only characters who didn’t manipulate Katniss — he went out of his way to make sure she’d be the one who made the choice to be the Mockingjay, even though that was what he wanted for her. What a classy guy. Um, character.

Jess: There was so much about this book that was so great, and yet there were some really disappointing aspects to it as well. As much as it pains us, Mockingjay only gets four cupcakes (the only non-perfect score Suzanne Collins has ever gotten on this site!), bringing the series down to four and a half cupcakes overall. Still a respectable showing, though, and if these books don’t go down in history as classics of the genre, well, we’re sad.

Thomas wakes up in the maze, the newest kid there. Before he has a chance to figure out why he can’t remember anything, or acclimate to life in the Glade and the Maze and its horrible Grievers beyond, bad things start happening. First, another newbie shows up — the first and only girl. Then supplies stop coming. And then the Ending: if the Gladers don’t solve the Maze soon, they’re definitely going to die there.

There are spoilers uncovered under the cut.

My main thought after reading this book was that it called on a lot of the same tropes as the Maximum Ride series — but its strengths and weaknesses are exactly opposite. Consider: both books involve kids who are part of some enormous experiment (not one they entered by choice), who don’t really know what its endgame in. They both are told that everything happens for a reason, but never really get more than a hint of what that reason is, and yet have reason to suspect the evil scientists are perhaps not so evil after all. And both feature a lot of running and being chased by strange creatures.

But in terms of strengths and weaknesses, where the problem with Maximum Ride was the pacing and total lack of plot, but its strength was the characters, Maze Runner is in the extreme other corner. The book is face-paced and exciting; the plot is fine, though nothing extraordinary, and carries the book from setpiece to setpiece with no problem. But the characters had zero personality (and there was only one girl, who spent much of the book unconscious, which… yeah). We’re told that Thomas is very smart, and in great shape, super duper special and extraordinary… and being told that substitutes for development. Similarly, the ease with which Thomas defeats the Grievers and saves people makes it look like everyone else was just incredibly incompetent for two years,and makes it all feel a bit too easy for him.

Aside from that, the slang made me really irritated. I think adding in some slang can make for really great world building, when done well; it can make the strange setting feel real. It basically failed to do so in Maze Runner. It didn’t feel like there was a need for a lot of the words that were used, and whether there was a need or not, they were all vastly over used, to the point where it felt more like a nervous tick than an insult when a character was called a shuck-face or a pile of klonk or whatever.

Ultimately, because I’m such a nut for worldbuilding and structure, I liked the book fine. I might even pick up the second one, to see if there really is a plan behind everything, something I’m generally pretty skeptical of (especially after the Maximum Ride series…). But the book itself didn’t do much for me; the good parts were fine, but not outstanding, and the bad parts were pretty annoying. So it edges by with a respectable but not outstanding three cupcakes.

Incarceron is a prisoner unlike any other: it is alive, and holds thousands of prisoners inside it, in a bleak, ever-changing, deadly landscape. Finn awoke inside with no memories, but is sure he came from somewhere else — even though most other prisoners don’t believe the Outside even exists, or that Escape is possible.

Claudia is the daughter of Incarceron’s warden, soon to be married to a prince. Caught up in a web of intrigue and not sure who to trust, she searches for her father’s key — and through it finds Finn. Desperate, she’s sure Finn is the only one who can help her, and she’s certainly the only one who can help him.

But they have only hours to get him out, before her wedding takes place, and all hope to free not just the prisoners, but the entire trapped world is gone…

Oh man, you guys. During the four days I was reading this book, I kept running into articles about how it’s going to be the Next Big Thing in YA, and had to flee spoilers. But I hope it is the Next Big Thing, because it’s pretty much awesome.

I’m crazy for worldbuilding, and Incarceron‘s world is awesome. The world itself is one of the most interesting dystopias I’ve run across: several hundred years in the future, after some sort of horrific war (the “Years of Rage” — the book does have a minor tendency towards Significant Caps, but thankfully doesn’t take it too far), technology has been banned, but the wealthy still have it in semi-secret. The world itself is subject to Protocol (like I said about those caps…), which forces everyone into a sort of pre-industrial revolution existence, complete with corsets and capes and carriages (…alliteration is all mine, though). But the Protocol is oppressive, and the only people who find it entertaining or romantic are the people wealthy enough to use contraband technology — everyone else, for example, is illiterate, and likely to die from lack of vaccines. The combination of the Protocol and the sci-fi tech gave the whole thing a steampunky feel, which I really liked. (Hence it gets both the dystopian and steampunk labels up top.)

And then there’s the inside of Incarceron. Creepy, creepy, creepy. And again, a strange blend of sci-fi and steampunk — people born with mechanical limbs, metal forests, and the technology of Icarceron itself, contrasted with people living in semi-nomadic tribes, fighting with swords for survival, believing in magic and superstition. (Or is it only superstition …?)

The characters were great: Finn calls on a lot of standard fantasy/scifi tropes, but does so very well. I love that he isn’t just instantly a nice guy in a bad situation — he does bad things, and spends a lot of the book coming to terms with them and growing a conscience. I had a harder time getting a bead on Claudia, since she’s less archetypal, but she’s an active heroine (yay!), interesting and complex in her own right. And the supporting cast is equally complex: for example, the morally ambiguous guy is actually ambiguous. In many novels, that’s the guy you can tell either going to defect to the badguys, or get an obvious redemption in the end. Instead, I actually wasn’t able to tell which side he’d end up on in the end.

And then there were the twists at the end. I thought I called the book’s big twist — turned out it wasn’t the biggest, or even close. The last section is just reveal after reveal, and wow. I haven’t wanted a sequel this badly since I finished Catching Fire.

The one real quibble I had is minor at best. The first section has a lot of people expositioning awkwardly at one another — “Well, Claudia, let me explain this thing to you that you and I are both already aware of, but it bears repeating for no real reason except it’s a good way to explain to the reader.” It’s less than graceful, needless to say. But since I couldn’t put the book down, and every time I started to write this conclusion I realized I had another glowing thing to say, this book is a solid five cupcakes.

The Hunger Games are over, and all Katniss wants is to go back to her normal life. But the government isn’t happy with her – not least because she’s unwittingly become the face of the rebellion. As unrest grows in Panem, Katniss begins to realize that surviving the Hunger Games was only the beginning.

Becky and I both loved The Hunger Games, and were on the edge of our seats waiting for Catching Fire to come out. It did not disappoint. I can’t say much without spoiling it, but I can tell you that Collins’s prose and plotting are as brilliant and gripping as always. The Hunger Games was full of fascinating, morally-murky characters who remain just as fascinating this time around, though the characters introduced in this book are eager to give them a run for their money. Katniss remains brilliant and badass and utterly socially inept. Panem gets even creepier and more intriguing. I could not put this book down.

All that said, I do have two very brief quibbles. One is that the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale is played up a lot in this book, and I can’t stand love triangles. That’s a personal preference (or un-preference), though. The other is that Collins glosses over major scenes a few times, summarizing them in a paragraph or two instead of showing us the dialogue, action, and emotions that are going on. It would be one thing if these were minor, unimportant slice-of-life scenes, but they’re pivotal moments. It’s bizarre, since Collins is usually such a flawless writer, and goodness knows Scholastic has given writers a few extra pages to fit everything in in the past (*coughHarryPottercough*).

Still, these are the faintest of objections to an otherwise incredible book. Collins maintains her perfect average here at Active Voice, as Catching Fire gets five cupcakes. (Psst! Suzanne! We’ll give you six next time if you get the third book out fast!)

By Suzanne Collins [LibraryThing - Amazon]

Katniss Everdeen is a poacher in the poorest district of Panem, the country that exists where the United States used to be. She’s been single-handedly supporting her family for five years, and would do anything for her little sister — even take her sister’s place in Panem’s brutal Hunger Games, in which tributes (more accurately described as sacrifices) from each district are forced to fight each other to the death. On national television. At first, no one takes Kat seriously, but even as she proves herself a formidable opponent she rages against the system, knowing that if she survives and wins the Hunger Games, she may lose her humanity altogether.

Jess and I both read this book, in fact, devoured it, within days of its initial release last year. We’ve been trying to review it for months now, but it keeps getting put off, because there’s not actually much to say. You see, this book is., in a word, phenomenal. We have no real criticisms, and we don’t want to spoil anything for anyone. All we could really think to do is list some of the ways in which it’s awesome.

So here you go!

1. Kat is a fantastic character. She’s a first-person narrator; she’s jaded and cynical, and very angry at the world — and understandably, given everything she’s been through even before the Games get started. She’s incredibly kick-ass and active in all the ways we love our protagonists to be, and her internal dilemma is as compelling as the external danger she’s in: if Kat manages to win the games, it’ll be by becoming a cold-blooded murderer, and losing her humanity. She’s terrified of letting that happen. But her only other alternative is to die. So what’s a girl to do?

2. The world building. It’s definitely a dystopian story, and Panem is a scary place. The difference between the haves and have-nots is striking and stark. The way Panem deals with enemies is also terrifying: the book takes place 80 years after a failed uprising — the event that gave rise to the original Hunger Games — in which one district was completely obliterated and is now basically salted earth; and Katniss runs across several horrific mutant animals that were used as weapons in that war. But on a smaller scale, she also sees what happens to individuals who dissent — and since she’s the hero, and Panem’s capital is villainous, of course we want her to dissent as readers. But we definitely know what the stakes are for that, and they aren’t pretty.

3. The plotting. The book is incredibly tightly plotted, full both moral dilemmas and serious danger (and you never get the feeling that Kat will be okay, just because she’s narrating). It isn’t a shock that the book is so well-drawn, given how utterly phenomenal Collins’ Underland Chronicles were, especially towards the end when all the small bits and pieces came into play. I can only imagine the scale on which that will happen in the Hunger Games trilogy, because with a first book as well written as this, and knowing that Collins is an amazing writer who can truly follow through on everything she has set up, I can only imagine the series getting better. And that is saying something, because the first book is really, really, really good.

Do I even need to say it? Five cupcakes and all the sprinkles in the world.

Lia Kahn was beautiful, popular, and rich. Her life was perfect — until she died, only to wake with her brain patterns transferred into a mechanical body. But society isn’t kind to Skinners, as downloaded people are called. She loses her status at school when her friends and her boyfriend abandon her. There’s a whole cult devoted to ridding the world of Skinners. Even her own family is uncomfortable with her. And for her part, Lia’s left wondering… Is she really Lia Kahn, or just a robot programmed to believe she’s a person?

A few weeks ago, Jess and I dropped by a signing at Books of Wonder, since it featured AV favorites Justine Larbalestier and Suzanne Collins as part of the panel of writers. We weren’t familiar with the other eight, but Robin Wasserman got as far as, “My book is a dark dystopia with a teen girl protagonist — ” before Jess leaned over to me and whispered, “So you’re buying it, right?” Right! Because possibly my favorite sub-sub-genre is dystopian science fiction about teenage girls! So I got the book, and got it signed (Wasserman was super nice, too). And last weekend I finally sat down to read, and positively devoured it.

Skinned is awesome.

The first thing is Lia’s character. Lia is great, largely because she’s not the sort of protagonist you get used to in this kind of genre. She’s not plucky; she’s not spunky. She’s not even nice — in fact, she’s very much a classic mean girl. But she’s still sympathetic. As a reader, I was cheering as much for her to regain her shallow, horrible status as I was for her to learn she didn’t need it, which is a very fine line indeed. Basically, I wanted Lia to win.

Next is the world. Wasserman mentioned at the signing that she hadn’t originally set out to write a dystopia, and instead was planning near-future science fiction with our current world taken to the next level. That it turned into a dystopia is a little scary, but the world is great. Post nuclear war, the rich live in luxury, genetically screened to not just get rid of any potential diseases, but enhanced to be beautiful or brilliant (or, if you have enough credit, both). They are plugged in all the time, constantly on a virtual network that makes up much of their real world. Most of them work, but life is easy. On the other hand, everyone else is stuck living in crumbling cities which are not only not connected, but have no power much of the time (let alone proper healthcare, which is a problem, given that most of these cities are still toxic from the nuclear fallout). The only alternative to cities is to basically sell yourself into slavery and work for a company. But the gap between rich and poor is huge, and the way the characters deal with it is pretty fantastic.

Lia has no concept of how people in cities actually live, and firmly believes the party line that anyone can move from city to corporation to wealthy by working hard enough. Meanwhile, the class nerd — Auden — is a total freak because he worries about conditions in the cities and thinks city people need help, but he’s never been to a city; and when he suggests the energy crisis is just a way the government keeps people under control, everyone laughs at him as a conspiracy freak.

And speaking of Auden, he’s also a great character. And I absolutely must sing Wasserman’s praises here, because the tangible awkwardness between Lia and Auden as they become friends and it’s obvious he has feelings for her that doesn’t return is so very real. It’s almost painful. And double points because, while Auden represents one possible future Lia could take, and a male Skinner named Jude represents another, Lia attempt to make sense of things never comes across as Lia choosing between two boys.

Finally, the book’s treatment of race completely floored me. I won’t spoil that for you — the sudden bluntness of it actually made me gasp when I realized — but we’ll just say that it isn’t a coincidence Lia’s mechanical body is white, blond, and blue-eyed.

Basically, the book is amazing. The tone is great; it’s dark without being overwhelming, even in the moments when the book makes some really unpleasant points. And the ending was fantastic, because it sets up to go one way, which would totally make sense and be fantastic — and takes a sharp left turn that is unexpected, but also fantastic. (Definitely did not see it coming.) Skinned is the first in a trilogy, the rest of which is not out yet. Since I will be buying them in hardcover the moment they are available, the book gets an obvious five cupcakes.

Luke was never supposed to exist. The Population Law says that families can only have two kids—and the Population Police will murder any third children they find. But So Luke lives in hiding in his parents’ attic, never allowed outside, not even allowed to eat with the family in case someone glances in the kitchen window.

But then everything changes—from his hiding spot he sees another child like him, a girl who shouldn’t exist, another third. He risks everything to meet her…And it turns out that she has a daring plan which might not just liberate the two of them, but every hidden child in the country. If only they can find the courage to do it…

I was expecting a bit more science fiction when I picked this book up, and instead got a dystopia with a more classic feel. It reads very much as a cross between 1984 and The Giver, set in the Great Depression. Except, of course, that it isn’t the depression; it’s a generic future where population explosion combined with drought and famine to topple the government, bringing a totalitarian regime to power. The book also touches on class, quite a bit; Luke’s family are poor farmers, barely able to keep the roof over their heads, completely unable to turn a profit. But they live next to a settlement of Barons, a class so wealthy and powerful they have hidden luxuries like illegal junk food…and their third children can get fake identity cards, leave their houses, and pretend to be normal.

The book does a pretty good job of showing just how miserable Luke is. He’s lonely and isolated, and it gets worse as the book goes on; the writing is vivid and clear. The characters are pretty standard. What makes the book good, though, is Jen, the girl Luke finds hidden in a Baron household. Jen is both passionate and naïve. She desperately wants to be free of the tyrannical Population Laws, and defies both her parents and the government to try and do so. But her passion blinds her; she believes she truly can fix everything, that it’ll be easy to do. She believes anti-government propaganda uncritically, while Luke discovers for himself that the truth isn’t what the government claims, and it isn’t what Jen and her circle of pre-teen rebels believe; it’s somewhere between the two, all shades of gray. And then…spoiler. show

The dystopia itself is pretty great, but then, I love a good eerily wrong society. (Shocking for long-time readers of this blog, I’m sure.) The book definitely has that; it’s developed and fascinating. Unfortunately, part of what makes it so upsetting is that it’s got an…hm, not exactly anti-choice message, but it skirts the line pretty closely. There’s a very effective scene where Jen and Luke discuss the government’s propaganda, encouraging women to have fewer children—only one, or none at all. And Luke knows that all women are required to have a surgery after they’ve had two children, to make it impossible to have more; and that if an accident happens and she gets pregnant again, she’s supposed to “take care of it.” Luke doesn’t know what that means, only that his mother knew she could never have “taken care of” him because she loves him so much and wanted a large family so badly. The juxtaposition of the evil government forcing sterilization on women and the loving mother defying them is pretty striking. It isn’t a pro-choice, pro-life question, because pro-choice is very definitely not pro-forced-sterilization (since that, you know, takes away your choice), but it comes close enough to make me uncomfortable. It didn’t strike me as intentional, or that it was a message the author was hoping readers would take away, but it was subtext nonetheless.

Otherwise, the book is a dandy little dystopia. A little off the beaten path for this blog, but solidly-written and definitely something that could be read, enjoyed, and discussed in a young-ish classroom. I would read the sequels (the further adventures of Luke, presumably still seeking a way to free the shadow children) if they were available free, but am not interested enough to pay for them, and I was mildly disturbed. But then again, isn’t that why you read dystopias? Anyway, I’m split; I’m giving this three cupcakes because my enjoyment of it was stronger than my discomfort, but it’s slightly generous on my part.

When Joe follows the strange girl called Katherine who’s been sent to fetch him, he finds himself in a land torn apart by war, where the people live in fear of secret police and horrifying machines capable of immense destruction. With Katherine and a blind guide named Spider, Joe must make his way across the perilous no man’s land to the capital city in order to find his little sister, Hannah – for this is the land where sick children go, and Hannah is deathly ill. But as Joe finds himself awash in this land’s secret history and deceptive politics, two questions arise: Just who is behind this war, anyway? And is Hannah the one who needs saving – or is Joe?

I’m not really sure where the title of this book came from. I mean, I placed it in “Portal Fantasy” because Joe gets whisked away to a different world, and there are elements that suggest magical intervention at times, like the fact that it’s been raining since the war started and stops raining when the war stops, but other than that it’s really more of a steampunky sci-fi, hence the secondary categorization in “Apocalyptic/Dystopian Science Fiction” (well, it’s a dystopia that eventually utopifies itself). But I digress.

As Joe and his companions attempt to cross no man’s land, they are beset by a variety of deceptively-harmless-looking tanks called Goliaths, which fire a disproportionately huge burst of flame at the slightest noise. Dirty Magic is like that: it’s a serviceable, unassuming story, and then wham! the ending hits you right between the eyes. As a reader, I loved it; as a reviewer, it’s a pain in the tuchas, because it’s the best aspect of the book, and I can’t talk about it. Woe.

The characters are straight out of central casting, from the Everykid hero (his name is Joe, for crying out loud!) to the wise blind mentor with the shadowy past to the sleazy politician villain. However, Hughes deploys them well, so I have no complaints to make. I quite enjoyed Spider and Katherine, and was pleased that Katherine was allowed to be very much a three-dimensional character without any nonsensical (and inappropriate at her age) romantic elements tacked onto her character, which so many books nowadays tend to do.

My main gripes were with missing details and unresolved plot elements. For example, one of the good guys dies, and there are absolutely no consequences – no one mourns him, and it doesn’t throw a single hitch in the good guys’ plans. What was the point, then? Another semi-spoilery quibble is show

My main question, though, concerns the world itself. Children who are deathly ill in our world are taken to the Dirty Magic world by fetchers, underage gofers for the army; then they must make their way to the capital city where, ostensibly, they are supposed to go through one of three arches in the city’s library and either return, healthy, to their bodies, or die. But why? What is the purpose of this world? How did the people who aren’t children from our world get there? The villain suggests that he himself was a sick child from our world, but that conversational thread was never resolved. What is the underlying logic here? There simply wasn’t enough explanation of what was, to me, a really interesting concept.

All told, Dirty Magic gets three and a half cupcakes. It wasn’t particularly outstanding, for the most part, but it was a good idea that was executed well, and I enjoyed it.