Her parents torn away from her,
Easier to pretend she's always been an orphan.
Government
mind drugs don't work on her.
Keeps her head down, keeps quiet.
The government-mandated
brain scan shows that she has tendencies toward anti-social behavior and criminal violence, so 16-year-old Alanna Fanshawe is no more. All mention of her is erased from official records of the UNA, the chaotic nation founded by force when the food crisis hit Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
The Forsaken evokes reflections of
The Hunger Games, similarities with
Lord of the Flies, and echoes of
1984, yet is truly its own dystopian world.
Grab this first book in the Forsaken series now at your local
library or
independent bookstore. Who knows how long Alanna will survive feral hoofer boars, manipulative leaders, and attacking drones on the
prison island?
**kmm
Book info: The Forsaken (Forsaken, book 1) / Lisa M. Strasse. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2012. [
author's website] [
publisher site] [
book trailer]
My Recommendation: Banished to the Wheel?! Alanna was sure she’d pass the government
test that weeds out subversives, but she failed. Now she’ll be deported to a
remote island, into a savage world of other teen misfits where few survive.
When she was ten, her parents were dragged away by United Northern
Alliance soldiers for quietly questioning the new government’s policies. After
six years in UNA orphanage with so many others, Alanna has learned to ignore her
implanted earpiece’s constant propaganda and the prescribed thought pills, just
going along quietly, not making trouble.
But the Test brain scan shows that she has “criminal
tendencies” so she’s whisked away to Prison Island Alpha, where the life
expectancy is 18 – no overcrowding, no chance of escape, no hope of ever
finding her parents now.
Alanna and new friend David try to avoid wild animals as
they search for a rumored settlement. Suddenly they find themselves in a war
zone, since they were dumped into an area being disputed between the villagers
and the Monk’s followers. Soon this city girl must learn to fight, to track
through the tropical forest, to trust (or not trust) the village leaders.
Avoiding the drugged-up “drones” who blindly follow the masked Monk is survival
priority one.
Why is the mysterious Monk controlling his follower-drones
like throwaway toys? What secrets are the village leaders hiding? Why did the
UNA abandon so many kids who are as normal as their classmates? How long will
Alanna survive on the Wheel?
This compelling book leaves questions in the reader’s mind
about how much a government should control its citizens and how far someone
would go to defend their freedom to think, their family, their very life. (One of 5,000 books recommended on
www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
