MARTians

Starred review from August 10, 2015
Woolston (Black Helicopters) nods to Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles as she envisions a bleak, near-future suburban wasteland of empty housing developments and thriving big box stores. After an unexpected early graduation when her high school is permanently closed “in the interest of efficiency,” Zoë Zindleman receives a job referral for AllMART. That same day her “AnnaMom” announces that she’s moving away and leaving Zoë behind. Eventually Zoë goes to live with other homeless kids at the Warren, an abandoned strip mall across from the AllMART. Snapshots of Zoë’s life as a trainee provide glimpses of a pervasive corporatocracy, and a populace all but deadened to reality. Zoë’s flattened narration reflects the disjointed, disconnected nature of her existence, and while Woolston keeps the focus on Zoë, offhandedly mentioned details about her world (“I’m not an Otakusexual—although I respect toonophilia as a sexually responsible choice”) and chilling corporatespeak (“Your smile is AllMART’s welcome mat”) will set imaginations spinning. It’s a terrifying extrapolation of the here-and-now and, like much of Woolston’s fiction, far too close for comfort. Ages 12–up. Agent: Sarah Davies, Greenhouse Literary Agency.

September 1, 2015

Gr 5-8-In a dreary near future, big box retail companies own everything-schools, doctors, even people, if they're not careful. For Zoe Zindleman, this world has always been a well-oiled machine guiding her through life. But when Zoe's mom is forced to leave town seeking better work and Zoe's school hustles her into the workforce a year early, she is left rudderless in her decaying subdivision. When the buses stop running and the water is in danger of being shut off, a strange boy finds Zoe and makes it his job to guide her. Wary but with few options, Zoe follows him into the small and dirty world of people like her who've fallen through the cracks. Previous Morris winner Woolston's writing is smart and atmospheric, leaving readers to fill in many of the blanks about Zoe's world. The protagonist is an interestingly uncommon lead, slow to distrust the consumer-centric society she's grown up in. Many of the themes and moments can be thought provoking, even heartbreaking-especially set against such familiar territory as toy departments and food courts. Overall, though, many readers will feel slighted by the lack of narrative progress. Woolston picks up many interesting threads through the short book but sees few of them to clear or compelling conclusions. VERDICT Readers interested in thought-provoking stories set in unusual environments will enjoy this quick read, but those looking for a thrilling page-turner may be disappointed.-Amy Diegelman, Vineyard Haven Public Library, MA

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Starred review from August 15, 2015
A 15-year-old girl supports herself with a retail job as her close-to-reality dystopia spirals into hilariously surreal (yet tragic) chaos. Zoe Zindleman doesn't mind school and enjoys math (the foundation of responsible consumer citizenship). One day her weepy, drunken teacher is interrupted by the small-government Governor's shocking announcement: schools are privatized, all students are graduated, and everyone gets an e-tificate of graduation and a job referral. Many students are pipelined straight from the classroom to prison, but lucky Zoe is given two choices: AllMART or Q-MART. Thank goodness for the job, because Zoe's beloved AnnaMom comes home with news of her own: she's off to hunt for a job, leaving Zoe to fend for herself in their empty cul-de-sac. As the quirky humor dissolves into the baffling unrealities of loneliness and commerce, Zoe moves into an abandoned mall taken over by other unwanted children all looking out for one another. As a new AllMART trainee, Zoe-or Zero, according to her name badge-performs menial, unending, and Kafkaesque work, always with a smile: remember, a "smile is AllMART's welcome mat"! Subtle callbacks to Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles enhance the mood of eerie devastation for those who catch the references but don't detract for those who don't. Cheery commercial scripts, news transcripts, and other ephemera of this plastic society punctuate Zoe's narration, bearing witness to her grim environment, which, heartbreakingly, has no defeatable villain. A gorgeous and gut-wrenchingly familiar depiction of the entropic fragmentation of society. (Science fiction. 13-17)

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Starred review from September 1, 2015
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* When Zoe Zindleman graduates early from high school, she is invited to apply for an entry-level position at gigantic AllMART sort of a Walmart on steroids. Getting the job coincides with her mother's moving away, which leaves Zoe alone and facing foreclosure on their house. Then she meets new coworker Timmer, who invites her to join him in living at the Warren, a collection of rooms in an abandoned strip mall where Timmer acts in loco parentis for a silent little boy called 5er. The three form a family, even as the two teens continue to work at the big-box store where they are constantly under surveillance and where Zoe wears a name tag with the misspelled name Zero which speaks eloquently about her perceived identity there. Woolston, author of the Morris Award-winning The Freak Observer (2010), does a superb job creating a world that is part Kafka and part Orwell, while the regular integration into the narrative of quotes from Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles further lends an otherworldly quality. Told in Zoe's flat, affectless first-person voice one that is beautifully articulated the novel has an increasingly ominous tone that invites anxious speculation about the future of the three young people in a soulless world. This one is both haunting and unforgettable. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)