August 4, 2014
Rosie Sinclair’s one shot at becoming a film director is attending the Forge School, so she’s willing to put up with certain oddities. The school broadcasts students’ daily lives as the popular reality program The Forge Show, and only those with the highest “blip ranks” get to stay. Additionally, students must spend 12 hours sleeping, in accordance with the school’s belief that rest enhances creativity. Rosie is more comfortable behind the camera, but she plays along, earning her way into the top 50 with help from new friends and a well-timed kiss. When Rosie skips her sleeping pill, she discovers the school’s true purpose is more sinister than a quest for ratings. O’Brien (the Birthmarked trilogy) mixes the appeal of a classic boarding school novel with modern concerns about surveillance and reality as performance art, while questioning how human perception creates that reality in the first place. The final plot twist doesn’t quite satisfy after the race to the climax, but more of this series is yet to come. Like viewers of The Forge Show, readers will want to keep watching Rosie. Ages 12–up. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Associates.
August 1, 2014
Strange things are afoot at an elite school for artistic geniuses that is also the setting for a reality television show. On the day of the cuts, the 100 new sophomores at the Forge School will be reduced to 50, based on each student's popularity with the Forge Show's audience. Aspiring filmmaker Rosie needs the Forge School, as she hails from the "poorest zip code in the country," where she's "on the pre-prison track." Unfortunately for her, though, Rosie ranks in the 90s with only hours to garner the popularity to make the huge jump into the top 50 to stay, but as someone who would rather be behind cameras than in front of them, Rosie's not a natural. Luckily for her, a chance run-in with a handsome, Welsh-accented teenager employed by the school revitalizes her campaign to stay. But what happens when the cameras are turned off-at night, while the students get their compulsory, dreamless 12 hours of sleep-gives Rosie real cause to worry. Either students are being taken for mysterious purposes in their sleep and returned without ever knowing what's happened, or Rosie's having a mental breakdown. The cameras and jockeying for position add an interesting dynamic to cerebral Rosie's friendships, though the worldbuilding's occasionally unclear. O'Brien (Promised, 2013, etc.) gracefully tackles class issues without slowing her mystery. The sudden cliffhanger will polarize readers. A fast, satisfying psychological thriller. (Thriller. 12 & up)
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August 1, 2014
Gr 9 Up-Rosie Sinclair wants to be a filmmaker. When she's selected to go to the elite Forge School-part art school, part reality show-she thinks her dream is coming true as long as she makes the fifty cuts. But when Rosie skips her mandatory pill that makes her sleep for a full twelve hours, she begins to unravel the truth behind what the Forge School is hiding. A mixture of science fiction and contemporary fiction, this novel is an interesting addition to both genres. However, despite the fact that the Forge School is a reality show, not much is done with that concept other than occasional references to cameras and viewers; this element adds little to the novel. The plot is fast paced at the beginning and end, but the middle section often is slow, bogging down the action with Rosie's relationship with Linus, a cafeteria worker, and Burnham, the son of pharmecutical reps who provide the school with the sleep pills. The work also falls victim to being fairly repetitive; some scenes feel like they happen over and over again without progressing the story. It struggles to fully explain its own science. The final explanation for Rosie's actions may leave readers confused.-Paige Garrison, Aurora Central Public Library, CO
Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
September 1, 2014
Grades 8-11 Rosie's best hope for an education as a filmmaker is to make the cut at the esteemed Forge School of the Arts. With that comes the school's hugely popular, 12-hour-a-day reality show broadcasting the students' every move. To make the cut, a student's blip ratings must put her or him in the top 50, achieved primarily via manipulation by the viewers, sponsors, producers, and staff. Students are subjected to 12 hours of medicinally induced sleep each night, supposedly to boost their creative output, but when Rosie bypasses the nightly pill, she learns that she is part of a sinister plan. Like O'Brien's Birthmarked trilogy, this dystopian, sci-fi, psychological-thriller hybrid raises ethical and moral questions about science. This might have been a difficult story to pull off, given the environment, but with a likable narrator who is thoroughly unimpressed with herself, it works. The end is abrupt, hinting at a sequel, and there is a good measure of predictability. Overall, though, this should still have wide appeal.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)