Language: R (132 swears, 55 ‘f'); Mature Content: PG-13 (Mentions of sex and one night stands, a couple of kisses, alcohol use, mentions of drug use); Violence: PG-13 (bar fight, man shot in the stomach, attempted murder with poison, violent confrontations)
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
APPEALS TO: SEVERAL
Older teen Ning'er takes on a burglary job, thinking it will be quick and easy, and provide her with much-needed money. However, she quickly finds she has signed on with a crew of college-age insurgents and vigilantes. Re Zi'an is the explosives expert, Fei fei is the fixer, Zhenyi is the medical expert, and Cheng Yun (also known as the Red Yaksha or Young Marshall) is the leader and provides the funding. To make matters worse, they don't want her to steal an object; they want her to liberate a former rebel leader who has been imprisoned for five years. Set in futuristic Beijing, where cyborgs keep the peace in a class-divided society that often erupts in protests and riots. The city is divided by walls into six areas. Ning'er comes from the sixth or poorest of the rings. The city is run by an out-of-touch ruling family and elected officials who are in the pocket of the powerful pharmaceutical company Lilium. Many of the residents, regardless of which ring they live in, are addicted to a drug called complacency. Lilium will do whatever it takes to keep the people addicted to their powerful and expensive drug. The deeper Ning'er gets into the job, the more she realizes she has to either remain complacent or take risks and join her new friends as they seek revolution.
I enjoyed the book overall. It is a story of a girl who must choose between remaining safe with the status quo or taking risks to improve her life and the lives of others. It was confusing at times because each of the characters has a name, a nickname, and in the case of Cheng Yun, two aliases. A few key points of the ending were wrapped up too conveniently, in my opinion.
All of the characters are Chinese.
A. Snow, Librarian
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