The Glass Arrow

This dystopian story never lets up, and narrator Soneela Nankani hooks the listener from the start. The tension in Aya's voice is palpable after her family is slaughtered and she's hunted down, captured, and taken to the Garden to be groomed and sold at auction for her breeding potential. Nankani meets this gripping story head on. Aya's determination and constant struggle are evident in her defiant tone as Aya repeatedly makes herself unsuitable to appear at auction. Nankani's portrayals of the other girls run the gamut from terrified submission to haughty superiority. During a stint in solitary, Aya meets Kirin, a mute outcast, who helps her escape. The truly ghastly male characters from the capitol city are given voices that would give anyone nightmares. M.F.T. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

December 22, 2014
This grim cautionary tale opens taut and suspenseful, with its heroine being hunted down like an animal, her adopted family slaughtered and scattered. Fifteen-year-old Aya, raised a free female in the wilderness outside the capitol city of Glasscaster, is taken to the “Garden” to
be groomed and sold at auction, valuable primarily for her breeding potential. Determined and resourceful, Aya fights daily for her freedom, making herself unsuitable for auction while plotting to save her remaining family from assimilation into a nightmarish patriarchy. Her only ally is one of the mute, Roma-like, “Drivers”—a boy she names Kiran who first tries to kill her and then risks everything for her. A world where girls and women are commodities to be sold and resold is frightening enough; more chilling are the girls who embrace their fate or the women who participate in the system for profit and status. However, Simmons (the Article 5 series) invests little in backstory; the origins of this dystopia are murky, and the men tend to be flatly drawn mustache-twirlers. Ages 13–up. Agent: Joanna MacKenzie, Brown & Miller Literary Associates.

June 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-This engaging and complex story is set in a world where women are bought and sold at market for breeding. Aya, renamed Clover by her captors in the city, was born and raised in the wild and as such possesses a higher chance of producing a healthy male for potential buyers at market. Often reckless but always resilient, Aya is determined not to be sold and will stop at nothing to save her own life, the lives of those she loves, and even the life of a "half-friend." Narrator Soneela Nankani does an excellent job with distinctive voices for each character-from the singsong, high-pitched vocals of the Governess to the slightly accented, deeper voice of Kiran. The work showcases a strong heroine, deals with deep feminist issues, and even features a young romance minus the cliche love triangle. VERDICT Fans of Suzanne Collins's "The Hunger Games" (Scholastic) books and the Moira Young's "Dust Land" (S. & S.) trilogy will likely enjoy Simmons's fresh take on The Handmaid's Tale.-April Everett, Rowan Public Library, Salisbury, NC

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