The Blood of Hercules

 The Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas, 2024 HarperVoyager

     In the late 21st century the Gods of old mythology have returned to the spotlight. They call themselves Spartans and have become the overlords in a world where Titans - immortal monsters bent on devouring humanity - are a daily risk for the everyday human. There are twelve houses in two factions: Olympian and Chthonic. The Olympians are 'good' while the Chthonic houses are 'evil' and punished for their powers which can hurt others by being forced to fight the Titans. 
     Alexis Hert grew up in a protected zone in rural Montana. Her foster parents are abusive, but she has her best friend Nyx (an invisible snake who she talks to) and her younger foster-brother Charlie. When monsters break into the protected zone their foster-mother is killed, foster-father is jailed, and their run-down trailer-home is towed away by the authorities. Alexis and Charlie are homeless at 12- and 11-years-old. Years later, both are some of the smartest children at the local high school, but Alexis's dream is to test into the top 0.0001% get into college where she can earn a job to support them. 
     The Spartan Aptitude Test (which was only supposed to get her into a secondary school) shows that Alexis is a Spartan. From the moment she signs her test her life is thrown into chaos. 
     Alexis is jerked from her home to Italy where she is the only girl among 50 participants in the gruesome Massacre and earns one of 10 places in the Crucible. She is assigned Achilles and Patros as her mentors. They're powerful Chthonic warriors who look upon their assignment with contempt for the half-human Olympian "mutt". 
     But Alexis persists. Despite wanting to die at every turn, despite being starved and sleep-deprived, despite thinking she has no god-like powers, despite being held to an impossible standard, despite the mysterious voices which follow her every moment and make her question her sanity, Alexis persists. She has Nyx to get her through the endless days and remembers Charlie is waiting for her to come home to make life a little less terrible. 
    Getting to the end of the Crucible is Alexis's only hope: she doesn't care what happens afterward. But there are others in Sparta who have plans for the young woman. After years of living on nothing but the scraps she can scrounge for their small family, the goal is to make a better life for Charlie. When she does survive, not only the Crucible, but also an attack on her life Alexis discovers she has more than just her power on her side. 

     Mas tells a fascinating story with a sarcastic and nihilistic main character whose reaction to the hedonism is affront and realism, rather than entitlement. Alexis's fantasy is enough food to survive and a warm place to sleep through the winter; her classmates were raised to believe they are better than their peers and certainly better than mere humans. Identity and power dynamics weave throughout the story told by a teenager who just can't wait to die a death she'll never receive making for a fast-paced read. This book is classified as young adult but leans toward adult. Please read the trigger warnings. 

Crazy House

Crazy House by James Patterson & Gabrielle Charbonnet, 2017 Hachette Book Group

     Twin sisters Cassie and Becca Greenfield could not be more different: Cassie is a perfect student and careful to keep everything working as expected. By contrast, Becca is constantly in trouble, barely gets by in school and regularly flouts the rules. When Becca suddenly disappears Careful Cassie goes searching all across their cell for her wayward sister.
     Becca wakes in a strange place dressed in a hideous yellow jumpsuit and locked in a cement cell with four other teens. She is dragged from the room to take a series of tests and to endure a knock-out fight with one of the other kids. After the fight, Becca is thrown into a cell with the boy who brutally beat her, where he tries to befriend her. This place is a death row and, Becca learns, full of such contradictions.
     In their cell, Cassie breaks the rules and meets new people who aren't like Careful Cassie. The prefect's son Nate seems to be leading the outsiders and Cassie enlists his help. When they head out past the edges of the cell, Cassie is taken by the same people who took Becca.
     Within a couple days Nate followed trying to find his friend and discovers the two girls, and several other missing teens, have been taken to some sort of compound. Outside the cell, Nate meets a young boy from the cell next door who helps him infiltrate the crazy house.
     Cassie and Becca meet in their prison, the two battle and appear to take leadership over different parts of the prison. The administrators worry the girls will either fail or break this experiment. When Nate and the politics of their cell arrive in the prison Cassie changes the timeline of the girls' plan: Nate was injured and she cannot bear to have him die in this mess.
     The Greenfield twins present an interesting challenge for the administrators of the crazy house and their experiment. When the mystery of why everyone has been gathered is revealed to Cassie and Becca they must confront the misrepresentation of their life.
     With violence and mature content, Crazy House is better suited to older teen readers. Those who enjoy their mystery with a bit of adventure and a dash of romance will find a fascinating new world in this tale.

The City of Ember

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, 2003 Yearling Books

     For generations, the people of Ember have lived in a well-equipped underground city. The Builders planned for the citizens to live in Ember for 200 years and the storerooms are empty, the crops are failing, and the lights are flickering.
     At graduation, the twelve-year-olds are assigned their new jobs. Lina has always dreamed of being a messenger, but she's assigned to the Pipeworks. Doon, who doesn't have a real preference, offers to trade with Lina and the two strike up an unexpected friendship.
     Lina learns the city is worried that the lights will fail to flick back on though they aren't sure why they're even turning off. Doon discovers the generator which powers all of Ember is failing. When Lina's grandmother presents her with an ancient parchment with strange writing on it, the two teens work together to discover what it could mean for their dying city.
     When the friends discover the mayor and his corrupt clerk hoarding supplies the mayor attempts to turn the city against the children. Lina and Doon decide to prove their integrity and their theory of the parchment and try to escape as Ember dies. The only problem is they don't know what they'll be escaping to or if they'll even survive the attempt.
     An adventure for younger teens, The City of Ember follows Lina and Doon's unexpected friendship through the end of the only world they've ever known into the hope of a better future. DuPrau's novel is aimed at middle readers and has been adapted into a movie. Readers who enjoyed the 'Hidden Children' series will find The City of Ember a compelling read.

A Kingdom of Ashes

A Kingdom of Ashes by Rhiannon Thomas, 2016 HarperTeen

     Aurora escaped Petrichor and the tower where she'd slept the last century away. But the princess has no experience with the world outside her castle. After a couple short weeks it is amazing she still lives and a surprise the King's guards haven't yet caught up to her. When a kind woman in a small-town bakery tries to help the princess it appears her luck has run out.
     King John's guards try to capture Aurora, but her newly discovered fire allows her to escape. The cost, though, is the small town. The king's men prevent the townsfolk from salvaging anything and John has a new weapon against the true heir. Nettle, the singer who befriended Aurora in Petrichor, appears to help the girl escape and survive in the wilderness. The companionship and help allow the girl to make decisions on where to go next.
     Nettle helps Aurora travel across the sea to Vanhelm and Prince Finnegan's protection. Finnegan makes a point to allow Aurora her own decisions. Their search for answers is a partnership neither can allow to drift beyond propriety's bounds. In Finnegan's home country Aurora discovers an affinity for the dragons which destroyed fertile Vanhelm.
     While Finnegan hopes the Sleeping Beauty will find a way to use her magic to save his kingdom, Nettle shows Aurora around the city which is the last of Vanhelm. When Nettle returns to her spying in Aurora's Alyssia Aurora herself is left with Finnegan and her magic to keep her company: neither which help Aurora decide how she feels or what she plans to do next.
     King John announces that he's captured Aurora on her rampages and plans to execute both the traitorous prince and rebellious princess. Aurora decides time has run out. She prepares for the final battle terrified of the tough decisions she must make to save her people.

Maze Runner

Maze Runner by James Dashner, 2009 Delacorte Press

     Thomas wakes in a box moving up an elevator shaft, he has no specific memories to provide his history, only his name and general knowledge about how his world should work. The elevator opens on the Glade. When the doors open Thomas is lifted from the box and becomes the newest member of the group of teen boys.
     As Greenie, Thomas learns the Glade is at the center of a maze filled with Grievers: deadly half-monster, half-machine hybrids with a pre-programmed desire to kill the boys. The next day another newbie arrives and throws the Glade's two-year schedule out of wack. Not only is the newcomer the first arrival to break the once-a-month pattern, but Teresa is the first girl to join the group.
    When Teresa triggers something called the Ending, their world changes even more. Supplies fail to come, the protective walls to close out the monsters, and the sunny blue sky turns to a grey ceiling. The boys struggle to find some semblance of normalcy only to conclude they cannot. Their only hope to survive is to escape.
     Dashner's dystopia presents the question of survival and change in a world with no personal history, and illustrates how personal memories play a role in social constructs. Thomas knows he was sent to the Maze for a reason; his only problem is remembering why.
     Violence and death abound, with suspended mystery driving the teens toward their inevitable future. Teens and young adult readers who enjoyed the Hunger Games and Divergent series will see a continuing trend in Maze Runner.

Messenger

Messenger by Lois Lowry, 2004 Houghton Mifflin

     After the events of Gathering Blue Lowry follows Matty when he leaves with Christopher. They settle in the healing Village where Christopher is the Seer. Jonas, originally introduced in The Giver, becomes Leader who manages the village and its altruistic members. Jonas and Gabe have found refuge from their dystopian hometown, just as many of the residents have escaped from hardship and injury.
     Several years after arriving, Matty strives to earn the name Messenger. His caring for the people of the Village begins to manifest in a gift of healing. When the people begin to make dangerous trades with Trademaster (a shadowy figure which trades elements of personality for what the trader most desires, wishes which never come into reality as planned).
     The Village begins to lose its identity and some even aim to close their sanctuary to outsiders. Matty goes in search of the Seer's daughter Kira before the city can close the borders. In his search for Kira's home (introduced in Gathering Blue) Matty finds his healing gift can be used to save the town from itself.
     Matty travels through the Forest, which has a sentience that reflects the health of the Village, it has become more and more dangerous of late. Returning to the Village with Kira the Forest begins to attack the two; Matty must decide what it will take to finish his task and whether his life is worth the changes he can affect.
     Lowry's tale gives more insight to the dangers Jonas and Gabe faced when they escaped in The Giver, and a future for the characters of Gathering Blue. The idea of a trade of inherent qualities for intangible, or even tangible goods is explored, along with the consequences to individuals and communities for such a trade. For readers who enjoyed the City of Ember and its sequels Messenger follows a post-apocalyptic world and its different developing societies.

Gathering Blue

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry, 2000 Delacorte Press

     Kira was born with a deformed leg and, in a society which casts out any imperfection into the Fields to die of exposure and the Beasts, her leg is a liability. When Kira's mother dies the ruling Council of Edifice comes to her home in the slums and brings her to the ceremonial audience chamber so Kira may prove her worth before the Council sends her to the Fields and certain death.
     Jamison, a member of the council, defends Kira and her needlework skill using an old acquaintance with her long-dead father to find the girl work. Jamison and the council set Kira to work with aged Annabella on the embroidery of a beautiful robe which shows their history. The robe is worn annually at the Gathering where the history of the people's struggle is retold by the Singer and their belief in brute superiority is reinforced when imperfection drives their society from its glory of old to this new existence of bickering and infighting.
     Annabella teaches Kira the magic of dyes and helps her improve her needlework. Kira begins to believe the idyllic life she leads when the begins to make friends in her new home. Matt is a young orphan who lives in the elaborate palace with Kira and the other orphans. Thomas is a woodworker who helps repair the staff the Singer uses to remember the songs of their history. Jo is a young girl whose talent with song secures her a place as the next Singer.
     But Annabella doesn't allow Kira to believe her world is as she dreams. When Annabella dies her offhand comments and pointed remarks make Kira look deeper at the people and events around her. After the annual Gathering Matt disappears. When he finally returns he brings a strange blind man from the Village of Healing. This man's appearance brings the subtle injustices to the forefront and encourages not only Kira but also Thomas and Jo to use their exalted places to alter expectations.
     In his attempt to gather blue for Kira and her needlework Matt links Gathering Blue to The Giver and The Messenger in this post-apocalyptic world. Inability and physical weakness do not determine the fates of Kira, Matt, Thomas, and Jo. Readers of middle ages can easily access this story of hope despite the hard truths revealed.

The Selection

The Selection by Kiera Cass, 2012 HarperTeen

     Sometime after the fourth World War North America has become one kingdom--Illéa. As a fairly new nation the country has its problems, but most are hidden from America Singer and the rest of the nation.
     America is an artist from the fourth caste in a family who, though they love each other, struggles to make ends meet. She has a secret boyfriend, Aspen, a 6 and two castes below her, just above the homeless and casteless. When the generational Selection comes along to find a Beloved Daughter of Illéa to marry Prince Maxon Schraeve. America's mother and sister are ecstatic and insist she apply. America doesn't want to give up her home and Aspen's love, but when even he asks her to sign up, America is torn. She applies and is Selected.
     With 34 other young women, America travels to the capital and the monarch's palace where she will compete for the prince's hand. But America doesn't want Prince Maxon or the crown he offers--she just wants to get over Aspen's rejection and go home.
     After their first meeting gets off to a rocky start, Maxon and America decide to remain friends and America agrees to keep his confidences until he can find a young woman from the group as his wife.
Followed by cameras and surrounded by women grasping at all Maxon can provide, America hopes to help the man whose friendship means more and more to her. Through rebel attacks and surprising returns the two gradually come to know each other better until the prince narrows the 35 Selected to 6 Elites.
     The Selection is a story that, while fitting into traditional princess story guidelines, bucks convention with a female lead choosing not a man, but herself as she struggles to play the hand she's been dealt. Middle school and high school readers will understand the competition between the Selected and the search for true friendship among masses searching to display their most perfect selves.

Mockingjay

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, 2010 Scholastic Press

     After she's taken from the Arena in her second Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is spirited to the long-lost District 13. There she recovers and learns she is to be the face of the revolution. The only problem is President Coin seems to want to maintain the status quo rather than improve the lives of Panem's people.
      When Peta appears to be supporting the government, Katniss is hard-pressed to protect him from the eradication Coin has planned. Only by agreeing to be the Mockingjay can she save him, and so begins Katniss's activism.
      She disobeys orders and fights for the people of her nation, district by district her honest actions win over the people. When Katniss is nearly killed during the siege of the Capitol's final stronghold the people rise to defend her--she has not challenged them, but given the dissatisfied a point to rally behind.
     When the time comes to battle the Capitol within its own bounds Katniss is held back. Haymitch notes that she is a tool, one with an expiration date if she does not support the new regime whole-heartedly. When given the chance to defect and take matters into her own hands the Mockingjay takes her tribe into the heart of battle and fights for the future.
     Like the books preceding it, Mockingjay is a bloody battle for supremacy, rather than subtle maneuvering and manipulation with the Hunger Games Panem breaks out into full-blown civil war and rebellion. The story is not meant for young children or readers who are uncomfortable with gore--it is more suited to older teens and young adults with its graphic violence.

Anthem

Anthem by Ayn Rand, 1938 Pamphleteers, Inc.

     In the novella Anthem by Ayn Rand society has become compartmentalized to survive chaos. Children are taught to exist for the greater good, and individuality is stripped from existence. One man, labelled Equality 7-2521, discovers a secret tunnel where he finds solitude and writes. His alone-time violates all laws of society and, though he comes to enjoy the solitude, Equality 7-2521 begs forgiveness from the Council.
     In his solitude Equality 7-2521 writes of his childhood; how he was cursed with a terrible curiosity, how he fought with the other boys, how he preferred some people and things to others, he writes of how he tried to conform, but failed.
     When Equality 7-2521 was ten years old he, with the rest of the children, watched the execution of a Transgressor--one who had discovered the word "I". While he was burned alive, the Transgressor showed no pain, but made eye contact with Equality 7-2521 and the youth took it as a signal of his apprenticeship to the Transgressor. When he was made a street-sweeper rather than a scholar Equality 7-2521 was glad for the chance to atone for his sins.
     The youth begins to experiment and develops a light bulb which he wants to display at the Council of Scholars when it convenes in his city. He also finds himself falling in love with "the Golden One", a young woman who makes him think of the Palace of Mating. Equality 7-2521 arrives late to his sleeping place one night and is sent to the Palace of Correctional Detention, when he refuses to tell where he's been he is tortured and held captive until the World Council convenes in town.
     Equality 7-2521 is rejected out of fear and barely escapes with his invention and his life. He flees to the Uncharted Forest where he finds freedom. The Golden One follows him and they discover individuality is not the danger the ruling Council touts it to be. They make their lives together and plan a future where man understands the spirit of individuality and supremacy of the ego.
     Ayn Rand's tale explores the destruction of the singular human being, an integral part of our society. While the concepts can be confusing (the first few times I read the story I had difficulty getting through to Equality's discovery of the individual) it extrapolates on the idea of socialism taken to the extreme--all of existence is dictated by the good of the many and little is done to advance society because the advanced are kept at the level of their less fortunate brethren. Anthem is a philosophical read for high schoolers and adults. It is a short story, but ideologically weighty.

The Giver

The Giver by Lois Lowry, Houghton Mifflin Company 1993

     What do you do when your entire civilization has no collective memories? Lois Lowry presents one idea: you give the collective memories to one person who remembers for everyone else.
     In this post-apocalyptic world, society is structured and organized to survive. Jonas lives with his parents, goes to school with friends, and takes his vitamins like a good child. But life begins to take on a new element when he starts to see flashes of something in his black-and-white world. Around the age of 11, Jonas goes through the Ceremony of Twelve where his skills and abilities are taken into account and, like every other child in the village, he is given the job that will be his for the rest of his life.
     As the ceremony goes on, Jonas' classmates each gain their assignments; simple and normal jobs like food worker and assistant in the childhood centers, but Jonas is given the mysterious task of Receiver of Memory.
     When he finally meets the current Receiver, Jonas is unsure what his task is. The strange old man lives in a run-down home outside the well-ordered community, makes his own food, and doesn't travel into town unless he must: a sharp contrast to what Jonas is used to, living in the town and getting food from a center.
     Over time he learns that the Giver is the Keeper of Memory, and the flashes of something Jonas has been seeing are more than just something wrong with his eyes, but color. Jonas is told the new job will bring him nothing but pain and isolation, but he finally really experiences life: happiness, love, rain, and sunshine in the memories of the community. But he also gets the memories of war, pain, and death. The Community has figured out a way to create sameness by isolating all collective memory in the mind of the Receiver of Memory; but while it protected them, the lack of memory inhibited the community's ability to experience life for real.
     Jonas begins to challenge what he's always believed, accepting that in order to experience pleasure you must also experience pain. And it is in comparing the two that you realize how powerful and affecting each is.
   Lowry's story includes concepts that may confuse younger readers, however they are presented in a way that doesn't challenge their understanding or enjoyment of the story. The Giver is aimed toward middle schoolers and has a relatable storyline, despite its post-apocalyptic setting. It is a memorable book, asking to be examined again and again with its cliffhanger ending.