Set in a dystopian future not too far from the 21st century, the world bakes under a too hot sun and people scrabble for a living in barren terrain. Cities and islands have been swallowed whole by the seas and oceans and humans barely cling to life in scattered communities. It’s the doom of the world that has been predicted for years thus not a surprise. It’s what a young girl imagines coming next that poses questions.
Eleanor is already a mystery to the reader since she is a foundling, abandoned on her adoptive mother’s doorstep. However, Eleanor’s early days depict a girl restless with desire for her best friend June and hungry to know her origins, a question her stoic mother can’t answer. She’s not one to hold in her feelings and is eager to make friends quickly. There doesn’t seem to be a mean bone in her body. With everything about her an open book, it’s the strange new world around her that requires exploring.
The government has abolished racism and religion. Such actions raise questions. Did they blame religion for human indifference to climate change? Is the dismissal of race due to the fact that they think it inhumane or because, seeing there are so few human beings left, breeding of any kind is essential and therefore skin color needs to be overlooked? Is race truly wiped from the public consciousness or simply driven into other expectations? Accusations from modern-day theists accuse certain dictators of being atheists, the implication being that atheism was behind the atrocities thse men perpetrated. But further digging indicated that these men didn’t outlaw religion because of their atheistic beliefs but because they saw religion as competition. They wanted the people to love them not god. After all, the preferred address in Nazi Germany wasn’t “God bless” but “Heil Hitler”.
The promise of the academies as promoting a stifling conformity is swift to reveal itself and you experience the same wincing of spirit Eleanor does when she is finally brought to The Meadows. The warm glow of being among other girls becomes stifled with the threat of tattling over wrongful behavior. While The Meadows are filled with clean clothes, hot showers and food abundance, Eleanor wonders why the climate doesn’t change with the seasons, why their location is vague and uncertain, why the slant of the sun doesn’t alter as the months pass. As her questions mount, so does our worry about the nature of the school where she has been sent. Is she really “special” or is she and the other girls being groomed for a sinister purpose?
Peacekeepers are men of violence (a kind of doublespeak worthy of George Orwell). Auditory and visual surveillance is everywhere. Women are groomed for wifehood and motherhood; all other job avenues are closed to them. Single women, past the age of marriage, are a kind of menace, although it’s not explained how. The downfall of society is subtly blamed on women (divorce, whoring and debauchery being giving as reasons). The bright sheen of this world slowly fades in the encroaching shadow of a totalitarian state.
So what happens next? We are both curious and terrified to learn.
Eleanor is already a mystery to the reader since she is a foundling, abandoned on her adoptive mother’s doorstep. However, Eleanor’s early days depict a girl restless with desire for her best friend June and hungry to know her origins, a question her stoic mother can’t answer. She’s not one to hold in her feelings and is eager to make friends quickly. There doesn’t seem to be a mean bone in her body. With everything about her an open book, it’s the strange new world around her that requires exploring.
The government has abolished racism and religion. Such actions raise questions. Did they blame religion for human indifference to climate change? Is the dismissal of race due to the fact that they think it inhumane or because, seeing there are so few human beings left, breeding of any kind is essential and therefore skin color needs to be overlooked? Is race truly wiped from the public consciousness or simply driven into other expectations? Accusations from modern-day theists accuse certain dictators of being atheists, the implication being that atheism was behind the atrocities thse men perpetrated. But further digging indicated that these men didn’t outlaw religion because of their atheistic beliefs but because they saw religion as competition. They wanted the people to love them not god. After all, the preferred address in Nazi Germany wasn’t “God bless” but “Heil Hitler”.
The promise of the academies as promoting a stifling conformity is swift to reveal itself and you experience the same wincing of spirit Eleanor does when she is finally brought to The Meadows. The warm glow of being among other girls becomes stifled with the threat of tattling over wrongful behavior. While The Meadows are filled with clean clothes, hot showers and food abundance, Eleanor wonders why the climate doesn’t change with the seasons, why their location is vague and uncertain, why the slant of the sun doesn’t alter as the months pass. As her questions mount, so does our worry about the nature of the school where she has been sent. Is she really “special” or is she and the other girls being groomed for a sinister purpose?
Peacekeepers are men of violence (a kind of doublespeak worthy of George Orwell). Auditory and visual surveillance is everywhere. Women are groomed for wifehood and motherhood; all other job avenues are closed to them. Single women, past the age of marriage, are a kind of menace, although it’s not explained how. The downfall of society is subtly blamed on women (divorce, whoring and debauchery being giving as reasons). The bright sheen of this world slowly fades in the encroaching shadow of a totalitarian state.
So what happens next? We are both curious and terrified to learn.