Sonya, former poster girl for the Delegation, has been imprisoned for ten years when an old enemy comes to her with a deal: find a missing girl who was stolen from her parents by the old regime, and earn her freedom. The path Sonya takes to find the child will lead her through an unfamiliar, crooked post-Delegation world where she finds herself digging deeper into the past--and her family's dark secrets--than she ever wanted to,
While the actions of surveillance states are chilling, it’s Sonya’s journey that carries the reader through this walk into dark places, as the deeper she looks into the mystery, the more is revealed about her and her family’s crimes ... Roth’s latest is highly recommended for readers of dystopian fiction, lovers of Philip K. Dick’s thought-police science fiction, and anyone who wants to see how far 'If you see something, say something' can be led astray.
Dour Sonya becomes a character worth rooting for as she discovers the truth about her past, and a hint of romance amid the danger gives the story additional stakes. Roth has spun an interesting premise into a taut futuristic thriller.
One could imagine a dystopian novel set during the uprising that toppled the Delegation in which someone like Sonya is a villain, righteously imprisoned when a new government is formed. But Roth isn’t interested in easy victories or happily-ever-afters. Instead, Sonya grapples with the inevitable failure of even the most optimistic governments, the risk that exciting and helpful new technologies can be used for evil, and the responsibility she still bears for who she was and what she did during the Delegation’s heyday. The novel manages to be an elegant social commentary without resorting to preachiness, and even the most cynical readers will be as surprised as Sonya when they reach Roth’s big reveals about the depths of the Delegation’s depravity ... A wonderfully complex and nuanced book, perfect for readers who grew up on dystopian YA.
