Awaken

November 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-Because of school violence, terrorism, drugs, etc., all students in Corvallis, OR, in 2060 attend online classes, called Digital School. Virtually all relationships are now digital. Teens visit virtual coffee shops, take virtual runs on the beach, and go out on virtual dates. Maddie, 17, is practically the poster child for DS, since her father invented it. Unbeknownst to her thousands of online "friends," she is serving three years probation for hacking his files and passing them to anti-DS activists. When Maddie meets one of her virtual study buddies for a tutoring session, she is reintroduced to the physical world and unplugged relationships. Justin, older, mysterious, and smoking hot, has more than just studying-or even sex-in mind when he chooses her. He aims, like his parents before him, to bring down DS, and Maddie is faced with a difficult decision. Lest readers be a little slow on the uptake, the author all but shouts at them that virtual relationships are not as good as real-life ones. The story requires a suspension of disbelief that is hard to maintain. Can Maddie really not know why an anti-DS activist would recruit her of all people? In a world that is almost free of personal automobiles, how is it that the police are unable to find Justin's Mustang V-8 or connect it to his online persona (user name "Mustang V-8")? The story picks up in the middle with some exciting chases and a budding romance, so the ending is perhaps the biggest disappointment of all.-Anthony C. Doyle, Livingston High School, CA

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.