FlumeAward – The 100
FlumeAward – The 100 The 100 by Kass Morgan
I’ve been listening to this one (only copy in NH is audio from NHDB). I’ll have to return it tomorrow, but it’s a Dystopian novel set in a future where there was a nuclear disaster on earth, and the human race now lives on space ships or a space station. Minors who are arrested are confined until their 18th birthdays, and get a retrial at that point. Lately, all retrials end in death. In order to test earth to see if it’s safe to live there again, a group of 100 minor prisoners are to be sent to earth. The story is told from four perspectives: Bellamy, a young man whose sister is to be one of the 100, who just wants to protect her; Glass, a girl who was confined for having a forbidden pregnancy; Wells, Glass’ best friend, and the Chancellor’s son, who gets himself confined just to be able to go to earth with Clarke; and Clarke, whose parents were arrested and are now dead b/c she trusted Wells with information about them. Once the focus is taken off the ship, it’s almost a Lord of the Flies rehash, which isn’t to say that it’s not good, it just felt slightly unoriginal. The rotating cast of perspectives may mean that the story will be more accessible to a myriad of teens. I still don’t think I’d recommend it for the final list, though. -Kirsten Rundquist Corbett, Sandown Public Library *Addendum: After finishing it, all I posted on Goodreads was that I wouldn’t be reading the rest of the series, even though, as I recall, it ended on a pretty serious cliffhanger.
I haven’t read this one, but I think I caught the show on TV one sick day I had on the couch awhile ago. After reading Kirsten’s comments, it sounds vaguely familiar. Anyway, I thought the show was pretty unoriginal as well, but it seemed to have been pretty well received by viewers according to Wikipedia. I think better dystopian options will push this one out of contention.
Lisa Houde
Rye Public Library