Nocturnal Book Reviews

Egalley thanks to Random House Children's Books
It was actually a relief to find a dystopian that didn't revolve around love story. Starters is a very, very good book which reads like high-octane, supercharged thriller with just enough world-building and characterisation to make it believable and creeptastic.

Imagine US in near future, where Spore Wars wiped out all the population between 20 and 60, because the people who got vaccinated first were the most vulnerable - the kids and the older generation. They were the only ones who had a chance of survival when the spores were released.

What if you haven't had grandparents and according to martial law were not allowed to work? As a kid, a teen you are refused your right to earn money and if you get caught you will be taken into one of the institutions that are no more than juvies in disguise.

The Elders see most kids as the troublemakers at the best of times. Imagine, what would they do if they are left in charge?

Callie squats in one of the old flats with her seven-year-old brother who is almost always ill, and with a friend Michael. They've been living on the streets for a year, and she is always hungry, dirty, cold, and desperate to find help for her brother.

When she hears about Prime Destinations - a service where your mind goes to sleep for a week or so and your body gets taken over by one of the elders who can experience youth through you, it doesn't sound like a hard way to make money. Creepy? Sure. But not hard.

However, the client who takes over her body is the one who tampers with her chip in order to uncover the big and sinister conspiracy behind Prime Destinations and its leader Old Man, who always wears a mask.

Woken up in a posh night club in the middle of conversation, she is forced to take on the life of her renter. Between blackouts and strange voices in her head, before she even manages to realise what is going on, Callie is on the run for her life, helping her client and trying to save her little brother and Michael.

What I found really fascinating was a pretty advanced futuristic world even in a dystopia like this - the extended life to 150-200 years, the almost flawless reconstruction surgery, ways to heal people much faster, cures for many diseases and of course the technology that allowed to use someone else's body.

The drawbacks, - the lack of history of Spore Wars (who fought whom? why they fought?) and what about the rest of the world which didn't suffer from the same problems, what happened to them? - were impossible to ignore like a very large elephant in the room. (It irritated the hell out of me just like it happened with Dark Inside).

Would it have killed the author/editor team to have a tiny prologue in a manner of Star Wars? :) It would have added clarity and made us see the big picture much easier.
Oh well, I suppose we can't have everything, besides it's an ARC, maybe they'll add to it before publishing the final copy :)

Other than that, the book is nearly perfect. I breezed through it, it's addictive and very refreshing. Highly recommended.