Book Review - The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse

As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico, the U.S., and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet—having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to The Wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.

The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway.

The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book.... This is one weird, slightly scary book. Just so you know.

This story plays on the fear that the government is controlling us in someway and makes those that don't follow the rules disappear. Even those that have a genetic factor that makes it so the mind control doesn't work disappears. And if your parents were 'trouble makers' then it's a good possibility that you'll be thrown somewhere where you have no change to get in the government's way.

Poor Alenna seems to have nothing going for her. At ten her parents are taken by the government and she's put into an orphanage. At sixteen, she and hundreds, nay thousands of teens go through a 'test' to weed out those who'd cause problems in the government that literally has no crime. After a trip to a museum created by the leader of the new government that was created to stop all wars, she sees the Island where all teens who fail the test go. Brutal, she hopes she passes with flying colors.

But Alenna wakes on the Island panicking and not alone. In the few days she's rescued, makes friends, and fights for her life against 'drones' of the cult of the Monk. She and several members of the village that she became part of make a trek to try and make it off the island. But after several deaths, a capture of what's left of their group, and entrance to the restricted 'grey zone' with the Monk himself Alenna finds she's bitten off more than she can chew.

This story honestly kept me guessing to the very end where I paused with a twitch and thought, "What the heck did I just read?" It was different, eye opening to the point where you had to think that the events really had a possibility of happening at one point. And it also got the conspiracy theorist in my thinking. So many what ifs tumbling about my head that it had me thinking long after I put the book down.

I honestly can't wait to read the second one!

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