XVI | By Julia Karr
July 18, 2011 in Dystopian, Fiction, Life and Family, Sci-Fi, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult by Karina Knightingale
Tags: forged history, government control, lack of basic human rights, police state, sexual education, totalitarism, violence
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In the year 2150, being a girl isn’t necessarily a good thing, especially when your sixteenth (read sex-teenth) birthday is fast approaching. That in itself would be enough to make anyone more than a little nuts, what with a forced tattoo and all – but Nina Oberon’s life has taken a definite turn for the worse… Plot Nina’s mother is brutally stabbed and left for dead. Before dying, she entrusts a secret book to Nina, telling her to deliver it to Nina’s father. But, first Nina has to find him; since for fifteen years he’s been officially dead. Complications arise when she rescues Sal, a mysterious, and ultra hot guy. He seems to like Nina, but also seems to know more about her father than he’s letting on. Then there’s that murderous ex-government agent who’s stalking her, and just happens to be her little sister’s dad. |
BUY XVI
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Impressions I love dystopian novels because you can actually imagine future like that happening. 22nd century, I have to say, is extra scary – Big Brother watching, police state, obligatory GPS trackers under the skin for teenagers, cards pay for everything, plenty of police and government agents swarming the streets, adverts screaming murder on each and every corner brainwashing you to the maximum. This is consumerism society at its worst. Religion is prohibited, freedom of speech is non-existent, and history books are completely changed. Society separated into 10 tiers (like casts in India); the lower you are the less you are allowed to do. If you are homeless, no one will blink an eye or protect you if you are beaten or getting killed. And there is the matter of sex-teens. Each girl has to get a tattoo when she is sixteen, which says that she is available for sex. Any man can have her; if she is pregnant and the man doesn’t want a baby, she will have to have an abortion, the illegitimate children pretty much have little rights, and there are stories of them working as Cinderellas, free servants for their fathers’ families. Scared yet? Nina Oberon is approaching her sixteenth birthday and dreading it as opposite to her scatter-brained friend Sandy, who bought the whole media hype about how cool it is o be sex-teen. Her fight for her own identity and her freedom is almost hopeless until her mother dies from the stab wound and tells her before she dies that her father is alive, and that she needs to get to Chicago to find him and give him a special book from her. In Chicago Nina finds new friends, wonderful Sal and Wei, and dodges old enemies, while she is trying to accomplish her mother’s last wish. I loved Nina; she is a fighter, despite her weaknesses and mistakes. I loved secondary characters; they were full of life and hope. It’s a dark, violent and twisted story, but it’s a story of resistance of perseverance, and I would recommend it to anyone! Favorite Scene Nina’s birthday in the end |
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