With two Zs in her name, 16-year-old Zoë Zindleman is used to being last, but being the very last soul living in her neighborhood is not something she wants to get used to. Readers have no idea where the residents of Zoë's street have fled, or why, after being forced to graduate early, Zoë is now obligated to work at either Q-MART or AllMART as an entry-level MARTian. Even more baffling is why Zoë's mother felt she had to leave her daughter stranded.
Blythe Woolston (The Freak Observer; Catch & Release) creates a dystopian, near-future world with an atmosphere of absolute uncertainty laced with menace, desensitized cruelty, asinine media interruptions from Channel 42 and a dose of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Timmer, an AllMART employee (and self-appointed protector of stray people in need) bulldozes his way into Zoë's life, but she's so alone she can't see how to protest much: "Given the choice, I don't stir up a Dumpster of raccoons. I feel the same way about Timmer." In a numb daze, she moves with him and a few other abandoned children into a grim, deserted mall. Woolston's wry sense of humor and mesmerizingly spare style distinguish this story of how Zoë adapts to her strange new life at AllMart and her budding friendship with Timmer, whose kindnesses prove him to be an unlikely hero.
The parody of media manipulation, commercialism and retail psychology (as parroted by the savvy, order-seeking Zoë) is often laugh-out-loud funny, but underneath the satire of MARTians is the story of girl in search of love and family wherever she can find it. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness