It’s the year 2083 in New York City, and Anya Balanchine’s life is about to implode. Her father, a big-time mafia boss who dealt in illegal chocolate, has died, leaving her to take care of her younger sister Natty and her older mentally-handicapped brother Leo. Their legal guardian is their grandmother, who is so ill she is confined to her bed. This leaves Anya the de facto caregiver to everyone.

Additionally, Anya’s mafia family is exerting pressure on her to become involved in the business. She resists, and she’s especially put out when they try and involve Leo in their shady dealings. She worries that the family might expect her to step up to the plate and occupy the position her father held.

But things don’t completely suck for Anya until she breaks up with her jerk boyfriend. He comes over late one night to beg her for a piece of the contraband chocolate, and she gives in just to get him to go away. Then he lands in the hospital, poisoned, and the source is that piece of chocolate.

Suddenly Anya becomes embroiled in everything she tried so hard to avoid – the legal system, chocolate dealing, her mafia family, and even the son of the district attorney (although she didn’t really want to avoid him…). Anya must find a way to protect herself and her family, as well as determine who is really poisoning the Balanchine chocolate.

Anya lives in a unique dystopian New York. The city is full of crime (even more so than today) and the people have chosen to scapegoat chocolate and caffeine. At one point, an older character compares the prohibition of chocolate and caffeine to the Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s – it’s ineffective and causes more problems than it prevents.

There are also indications of widespread destruction. The Statue of Liberty is only a memory and Liberty Island now houses a massive prison. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been mostly destroyed, and what’s left has been turned into a club called Little Egypt (for the Egyptian artifacts that remain).

Unlike most dystopias, however, the dystopian environment does not take center stage, and the primary struggle is not against the dystopian elements. This could have been a book about the modern-day mafia and been almost the same story. It’s refreshing but also a little disappointing. As an avid dystopia reader, I love learning about all of those awful little details that make up the horrible future world, and I didn’t get a whole lot of that in All These Things I’ve Done. I thought the chocolate mafia was an interesting detail, but it wasn’t developed enough and left me a little dissatisfied.

Anya’s voice, however, is terrific. She’s a little wry, a little sarcastic, a little world-weary, and clearly cares deeply about her siblings and her grandmother. She’s just the right combination of smart and naive to be believable as the daughter of a mafia boss with a lot of responsibility but also a teenager.

Unfortunately, I was not as enamored of Leo as a character. I always dread it when authors include a mentally handicapped character in their books because I worry that he will be used a device rather than a person. Need a way to make trouble for the main character? No problem – just have her mentally handicapped brother do something unwise, she’ll try to protect him, and she’ll be in a world of hurt. It came as no surprise that this is exactly what Leo does, on more than one occasion. It got to the point where I didn’t want to read about him because I knew he would be used in this way. I think it’s kind of a cheap tactic and one I’ve seen used too often.

That said, I did enjoy All These Things I’ve Done. Zevin’s writing is solid, the voice she’s created for Anya is engrossing, her plot is fast-paced, and her world-building is interesting (albeit underdeveloped for my tastes). I look forward to the second installment, just not with bated breath.

Review copy provided by the publisher. All These Things I’ve Done hits shelves September 6.

You know, I have to admit it is kind of lovely that the publishing world has seized upon a subgenre I was obsessed with as a teenager.  There’s so much to choose from!  Sure, some of it is dreck, but a lot of it is pretty darn good.  And just think, so many of these books never would have stood a chance at being published (or even written) before the subgenre’s popularity exploded, thanks in large part to a little book called The Hunger Games.

I’m happy to report that Veronica Roth’s debut novel Divergent is one of the good ones.  And because I’ve harped on this ad nauseam in practically every single review of a dystopia I’ve written lately, I feel the need to state this right away: this book tells a complete story.  That’s right folks, it’s the first in a trilogy, but there is still a beginning, a middle, and an end.  I feel like hunting down Veronica Roth and personally thanking her for this favor.

Now that I’ve gotten that important tidbit out of the way, I suppose you’d like to know what Divergent is actually about.  In a future Chicago, the people have been divided into factions that each value a different personality characteristic: Erudite values learning, Dauntless values courage, Amity values kindness, Candor values honesty, and Abnegation values selflessness.  Something terrible happened in the past (what that terrible thing is, we don’t find out, but it’s implied that it’s a big war) and the faction system was created to prevent that terrible thing from happening again.  Each faction believes that a lack of their own chosen characteristic was the cause of the strife that plagued the world before – Erudite thinks ignorance is to blame, Dauntless thinks cowardice is to blame, and so on.  It’s an interesting idea that I don’t fully buy into, but Roth’s writing and plotting is good enough that I was willing to suspend my disbelief.

Beatrice Prior, our protagonist, was born into Abnegation.  She’s about 16 years old (people in Abnegation don’t keep track of their birthdays since that would be selfish) and will soon choose which faction she wants to be a part of, along with all the other 16 year olds.  Most people choose the faction they were born into, but not all.  Those who don’t choose their parents’ faction are usually ostracized by their family (you see the problems beginning already).  

Prior to the choosing ceremony, all 16 year olds undergo a test whose purpose is to help them decide which faction is best suited to them.  The test isn’t decisive – it’s merely meant to guide the person.  Beatrice’s situation is unique: the test tells her she is best suited for not one faction, but two, making her a divergent, something very dangerous in Beatrice’s world.  Luckily, the person administering her test is a kind soul and erases Beatrice’s results, entering in a manual result for one faction.  Beatrice then struggles with her decision at the ceremony – which faction will she choose?

Initiation into the chosen faction follows the ceremony, and it’s anything but pleasant.  It’s a long, drawn-out process that takes weeks where the initiate must prove she belongs in that faction.  During initiation, Beatrice discovers that her secret status as a divergent means more than just the fact that she might belong in two factions.  She also begins to uncover secrets about the faction system and their leaders (I love a dystopia with some juicy secrets that are revealed at key points in the story).  The stakes are high and the trustworthy people few.

Divergent is action-packed the whole way through, aside from the first few chapters that set up the premise.  Beatrice’s initiation into her chosen faction is particularly well-done.  The initiation challenges both her body and her mind, and the process also allows the reader to get to know the other initiates and their foibles and fears.  While many of the ancillary characters aren’t fully fleshed, Beatrice herself is a dynamic character who grows and changes throughout the book.  There’s also a romance, but it doesn’t overwhelm the story and it makes sense in context.  What’s more, Beatrice relies on herself rather than her love interest during initiation and what follows, and even supports him at times.

There’s a lot of comparisons with other dystopias that can be made – I personally don’t mind that there’s a lot of derivative dystopias out there as long as the author can write well and add a unique twist  – but I actually found myself thinking of the Harry Potter books as I read Divergent.  In both series, children/teens are divided into houses/factions based on personality characteristics, with one particular characteristic overriding the others and determining much of the person’s future.  The problems with this system of separation are similar in both sets of novels: rather than fostering teamwork and togetherness among each house or faction, the system fosters hatred of other houses or factions and derision of their most valued characteristic.  The special hatred between Slytherin and Gryffindor in the Harry Potter novels is mirrored in Divergent with the hatred between Erudite and Abnegation.

Divergent avoids a lot of the pitfalls that other recent dystopias have fallen victim to: it tells us something about how we live now (how labels can divide us, the importance of teamwork, the difficulties of friendship during competition, and the dangers of a herd mentality), the characters’ actions make sense within the context of the novel, it tells a complete story, and the female protagonist is active rather than passive.  

I would have liked to see more world-building.  As I mentioned before, I don’t completely buy into the premise, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that Roth doesn’t tell the reader what happened to create this very unique society.  Julia Karr’s XVI – another dystopia set in Chicago – does a much better job of this, but her world is also more closely related to our own, so the world-building comes a bit easier.  I hope that future installments will give me a better picture of the decimated Chicago and greatly expand upon the snippets we saw in Divergent.  Overall, though, Divergent is a book that stands out from the pack, and I look forward to the sequels.

The tagline for Ann Aguirre’s Enclave is “Welcome to the apocalypse,” which gives you a pretty good idea of what it’s about.  Deuce, our protagonist, lives in an underground world where the living conditions are harsh, but they help keep everyone alive.  When the citizens of this world are children, they’re called by numbers.  They’re not given a name until they reach the age of maturity (fifteen) and are finally able to contribute to society by becoming either a Breeder, a Builder, or a Hunter.

On Deuce’s fifteenth birthday, she’s given her name and initiated as a Huntress, something she’s been training for all her life.  As a Huntress, it’s her responsibility to not only bring back food, but also protect her community from the Freaks (think zombies) that lurk in the tunnels.  Every hunter has a hunting partner, and Deuce’s is Fade, the enigmatic boy (there’s your love story) who showed up underground a few years ago and was adopted by the community.  Fade has some strange ideas, coming from aboveground, ideas that may get him and Deuce in trouble – such as that the elders may not always be right, and the restrictive rules that they live by might just get them all killed.

Things aren’t going so well for the underground world lately – the Freaks have taken out another community a few days away from Deuce’s, and they’re encroaching upon hers.  The elders refuse to listen.  Events eventually conspire to force Deuce and Fade aboveground, a fate worse than death.  While the community underground is far from a utopia, aboveground is worse.  Deuce does not expect to survive, but she’s got Fade with her, who lived for years there before.  By working together and trying to avoid the bands of savage humans that now populate the earth, they might just survive.

Enclave has a lot going for it.  The world-building is excellent, something I really appreciate considering this aspect is so lacking in so many other books of the same genre.  Aguirre’s really got the ability to transfer us to her post-apocalyptic world and make us shiver.  Deuce’s underground world – both its setting and its culture – is particularly well done and is unique enough to stand out from the crowd of other post-apocalyptic settings. 

Aguirre has also given us some wonderfully gray characters.  She answers the question of “What would you do to survive in a world like this?” with her characters and doesn’t pull any punches.  At least one of the characters has done some pretty awful things, but Aguirre still manages to force some sympathy for said character on the part of the reader.  Deuce is a terrific protagonist, strong but also doubting herself and in a situation that’s more than a little over her head. She’s kick-ass (how I like my heroines best) but also has believable weaknesses.

With so much going for the book, I’m sad to say that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to.  This dissatisfaction can be traced directly to the plot.  While there is some promise when Deuce is still underground, that fades when she emerges into the wide world above.  From then on, the plot is typical of any other post-apocalyptic novel: a plucky band of survivors try to to find the perhaps-mythical land where things don’t suck.  It’s a road trip where nothing out of the ordinary happens (and by nothing out of the ordinary, I mean out of the ordinary for this genre – people trying to kill you isn’t exactly ordinary for most people).  I can’t say a whole lot more without spoiling things, but trust me when I tell you that if I did choose to spoil it for you and you’ve read one or two other post-apocalyptic novels, you wouldn’t be spoiled in the slightest. 

You should not be surprised to hear this is the first book in a series.  Unfortunately, it reads like even less than that – it’s more like Part One of the first book in a series.  No major revelation about the post-apocalyptic world is reached, no major character growth occurs, and the climax is so artificial and out of place I wonder if it was inserted after the book had been written.  It wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that Aguirre intended her book to be a standalone and was convinced otherwise by an editor or publisher, forcing her to go back and make major edits, extending a story that was really fit for just one book into two or more books.  After all, this book was originally titled Razorland.  Now it’s called Enclave: Razorland #1.  Hmmmm.

It may sound like I’m bashing every YA dystopia and post-apocalyptic book to come along lately, but that’s not really the case.  When a genre has exploded as much as this one has lately, there are bound to be more duds than usual.  Most of them normally still have something to recommend them, like Enclave does.  I wouldn’t not recommend this one, but I could probably more wholeheartedly recommend it after the second (and third?) book is out so they could be read back to back.  Otherwise, it’s an all too unsatisfying and incomplete read.

In XVI, author Julia Karr creates a dystopian future familiar to those of us who have read 1984 or Feed (and countless other books I won’t name for the sake of brevity). In Karr’s future, the government has become big brother, although it is not referred to with those words. The Governing Council keeps track of all minors (those under 16) using a GPS chip embedded beneath the skin, keeps poor people off the street by forcing them to take part in medical testing, and gives girls from lower tiers (think socio-economic classes, but more rigidly defined) the opportunity to advance themselves by applying for the FeLS (Female Liaison Specialist) service.

The Governing Council goes hand in hand with the Media. The Media is ubiquitous, even more so than in our own world. Advertisements blare out of every single shop and are broadcast without pause on all public transit. People – and not just the young – are plugged in constantly to their PAVs (personal audio/video), whether they are home, at work, or out in public. The Media tells people, particularly young girls, how to behave – how to dress, how to flip your hair flirtatiously, how to act once hitting the age of majority.

Which brings us to the title. When girls turn sixteen, they are required by law to receive a tattoo on their wrists that reads “XVI.” This indicates that they’ve reached the legal age of sixteen and can now consent to sex. The Governing Council argues that this helps protect underage girls from unwanted sexual advances. You can imagine the effect it really has. I was initially put off by this aspect, since it seems so unpleasant and so very obviously a Statement About Our World Today. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this is a small part of the story, despite the fact that it’s the only thing the book jacket discusses. It’s more of a background feature that helps to set the stage rather than the main plot thread.

Living in this world is our protagonist, Nina Oberon. She’s about to turn sixteen and is dreading the tattoo and all it represents. She lives with her mother and her half-sister, Dee, in Chicago. Then something terrible happens (fairly early on, but I won’t spoil you), and Nina learns that her parents (including her long-dead father) were part of an underground resistance group fighting back against the oppressive Governing Council and the omnipresent Media. This puts her and her sister in a dangerous position. Luckily, she has support in the form of a few good friends, a rather cute boy, and her grandparents. But the Governing Council is not going to leave Nina and her friends and family alone. What’s more, there’s the mystery of FeLS and what really goes on there to discover.

I really liked the world that Karr created. (Well, I didn’t really like it, but you know what I mean.) I like that she included some slang, and I also appreciate that she didn’t go overboard with it. I like that she included a lot of little details that really helped me to visualize the future world. The tiers, FeLS, Media, Moon Settlement Day, and so on worked together to make the world more complex, believable, and interesting than many I’ve come across in other recent dystopias.  I also really appreciated that she didn’t write down to the reader.  It’s initially a little confusing to decipher what all the unfamiliar words and acronyms mean, but Karr gives us the necessary information through context.  This is preferable to paragraph-length asides that tell, rather than show, the details of the world.  Lastly, I liked the characters, which were fairly distinct from each other and behaved in mostly believable ways throughout.

There were a few things that bothered me about XVI. The writing is mostly smooth, but there were a few clumsy passages and odd word choices. For example, cars and other modes of transportation are referred to as “trannies” – short for transits. This would make anyone do a double-take on first read.

There’s also a few worrying passages that veer pretty close to victim-blaming. Due to the XVI tattoo and other social ills, sexual violence is pretty common. Nina’s best friend Sandy has bought into the Media culture and likes to wear super revealing clothing and flirt up a storm. This leads Nina’s grandparents to remark to her “Does your mother know you’re wearing that? It’s too revealing. It’s not safe…dressing like that gives boys the impression that you don’t want to be [a virgin].” It’s not exactly “She’s asking for it,” but it’s close enough to make me uncomfortable.

Nina occasionally makes some dumb decisions that seem out of sync with her character but work well to drive the plot. On more than one occasion, Nina goes out alone when she knows that some very bad people are after her. I understand that the plot needs to be driven, particularly in a story like this, but it seemed disingenuous to make Nina’s stupidity the vehicle. Other than these blips, she seems to be a pretty intelligent girl.

Karr pulls no punches when it comes to the ending. It wraps up the main storyline – all of it – and only leaves a few minor threads dangling. In other words, I don’t mind that there’s a sequel in the works. I look forward to learning more about the world, in particular how the tier system works and what happens to Nina and the resistance after that killer ending. But I reiterate, the major threads were all resolved. I’m so grateful to Karr for this and wish more books took this approach.

Copy obtained from the public library.