Hungry

April 7, 2014
Amid the array of YA dystopian romance available, Swain (Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire) stands out for sheer clamor. Thalia Apple, 17, is a child of privilege in a marketing/surveillance-bombarded, corporate-controlled world. Thalia has no compunction about hacking and sabotaging the corporation that makes her privileges possible, but she does feel shame about one thing—she’s hungry. Since the sensation of hunger was declared to be eradicated decades earlier, and all nutritional needs are met with Synthamil, the atavistic rumbling of her stomach makes her a target for mental and genetic reprogramming. Thalia privately acknowledges the necessity, but she’s reluctant to be sent away for “inpatient treatment”—she’s just met a boy, and he makes her tremble in an equally forbidden way. Basil knows astonishing secrets, like how to recreate the smell of chocolate, and his friends, called Analogs, are part of an underworld that challenges the corporate hegemony more profoundly than Thalia’s fellow hackers ever dreamed. The plot unfolds in fairly predictable ways, but the sensation-saturated world that Swain describes gives the story fresh interest. Ages 13–up. Agent: Stephanie Kip Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

May 1, 2014
An alluring adventure in a future without food.Thalia's grandparents were farmers, but climate change and war have wreaked havoc on food supplies. Now, nobody farms, and nobody eats. Everyone drinks the nutritional beverage Synthamil, provided by megacorporation One World. Regular inoculations containing benzodiazepines and something unexplained that Thalia's mother invented suppress hunger, sexuality and moods. Talking about food-"forno," or food porno-is forbidden. But Thalia's stomach is growling: She's not supposed to be, but she's hungry. Leaving behind her pristine, hologram-landscaped neighborhood, she finds (and falls for) Basil, a boy in the outskirts who's created a machine to generate food aromas. Swain's romantic food descriptions trounce the dryly presented benefits of this society (there's supposedly no starvation or crime, which isn't true but also hardly seems to matter stacked against juicy fantasies of roast chicken and french fries). Thalia's brown-skinned, but privilege here is all about class; being a computer-hacking "privy" herself, Thalia's shocked that an underclass lives in poverty and that desperate people from all classes are so hungry they're eating dirt. Thalia and Basil's activism with underground networks gets them labeled by One World as outlaw terrorists; they run away and stumble into a cultlike secret community that holds disturbing ties to the city. Despite some loose worldbuilding and predictability, this is a page-turner that wants a sequel.Emotionally satisfying dystopia with a generous helping of forno. (Dystopian romance. 14-17)

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Swain's near-futuristic dystopia explodes onto this well-trod genre with a fresh idea, tense plotting, and relatable characters. Earth's resources, ostensibly decimated by wars and superstorms, have vanished, along with any flora and fauna. Mega-corporation One World swoops in to salvage the remaining humans from starvation by altering their DNA so that they no longer experience any pesky hunger pangs. One World also supplies all nutrition through a formulalike substance called Synthamil. In this world in which any type of food is illegal, Thalia, 17, begins to suffer unexplainable spasms in her abdomen. Instead of being shipped off to a "specialist" to eradicate her natural hunger pangs, as was wont to happen, she seeks out the truth behind the hunger and One World's monopoly on food. She teams up with a non-"privy," Basil, who leads her further into the resistance movement than she would have thought possible. Thalia is faced with a decision-do the easy thing or do the right thing, all while battling her genetic "mutation" that makes her mouth water and her stomach growl. From the Inner Loops to the Outer, to the Hinterlands and beyond, Thalia's journey is fast-paced, scientifically plausible, and scarily possible. The mood is tense, curious-but never relaxed. Swain completes a unique tour de force with Hungry, one that requires readers to examine current society, their place within invisible and sometimes all-too-visible hierarchies, and the consequences of genetic engineering. Fans of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (McClelland and Stewart, 1985) and Lois Lowry's The Giver (Houghton Harcourt, 1993) will flock to this story-Amanda C. Buschmann, Atascocita Middle School, Humble, TX

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2014
Grades 7-10 With a combination of synthetic nutrition and hormone-controlling inoculations that stop the body's hunger response, science has eradicated the need for food in Swain's crowded but compelling dystopia. Thalia Apple, 17, is the daughter of influential scientists working for One World, the corporation that developed Synthamil, ended global starvation, and gained total market dominance. Thalia rebels in small ways, like joining the hacker group Dynasaurs to sabotage One World's pervasive cyber marketing, but she doesn't truly question the system until she has a reason: she gets hungry. This shameful sensation of a growling stomach and gnawing emptiness leads her to another underground group, where she meets Basil, who shows her what it's like to be poor and dependent on a profit-driven corporation for nourishment. With solid, transparent writing and timely social commentary, this wild premise works quite well. Though Thalia and Basil follow a predictable arc toward romance and revolution, the privatization of government functions, especially medicine and pharmaceuticals, is a pivotal issue, and Swain semiplausibly imagines the implications.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)