This chilling debut novel imagines a near-future world in which no one is truly safe. Plague devastates the poverty-stricken classes. Only the military and the wealthy receive inoculations against the ever-evolving disease. But even the privileged fear the Patriots' attempts to overthrow the government.
An examination determines the fate of every 10-year-old in the Republic. If children test well enough, they enter the military, and if not, to the labor camps they go. Only one child has been known to receive a perfect score: June Iparis. She is one of two 15-year-olds who narrate this tale. The other, Day, was told he had failed his exam but escaped his fate. He now roams the streets as "the Republic's most-wanted criminal." How these two born enemies meet makes for riveting reading.
This suspenseful book comes to a satisfying close, but leaves enough unanswered questions to bring readers back for the next installment. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness