The Glass Arrow

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.

November 15, 2014
A teenage girl raised free in the wild struggles to escape the fate of city girls-being auctioned for breeding.Aya's captured during a brutal attack and brought to the city, where she's placed in a holding facility for unpurchased virgins. City girls, raised on "meal supplement pills," aren't as fertile as wild girls, so Aya's a hot commodity, making it imperative that she sabotage her chances of purchase. Acting out to avoid going to auction, she is punished with solitary confinement. In solitary, she meets a Driver (odd, mute mountain people who handle horses and are viewed as a lower life form) and forms a strange friendship with him. After failed escape attempts result in stricter surveillance by the biologically enhanced Watchers, quick-thinking Aya hatches a last-minute (hilarious) plan during the auction-and it might have worked if the mayor's son hadn't also found it funny. Aya has just moments to be rescued by the Driver from life as property. A forced gynecological-exam scene that's horrifying but not explicit is the most graphic sexual content, enhancing the terror of the culture's implied, off-page rapes. The culture and world are vaguely drawn, suffering from dropped plotlines, convoluted rules and poorly defined settings. The ending neither screams sequel nor especially satisfies. The ideas-extreme control of women and their sexuality-are more successful than the story's execution. (Science fiction. 14 & up)

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December 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-In a not-too-distant future, void of the belief in prayer and God, prayer is outlawed. Each public auction of available young girls raised for breeding purposes begins with a moment of silence to give thanks to the rich men who seek out subjects to purchase. Not only are women denied basic human rights in this caste society, but no one is given the opportunity to rise out of their assigned station. Lower caste men are neurologically altered to serve as either mindless, fashion-conscious baby-sitters for the chatteled young girls or emotionless security guards to keep the girls in line. Sixteen-year-old Aya, an educated renegade raised to think independently, is captured for sport by a rich young magnate and turned over to the capital city of Glasscaster for auction to the highest bidder. Aya is valuable because she has lived her life free, with natural foods, unlike the chemical substitutes given to the young girls raised within the city walls. This means that Aya has a higher chance of giving birth to a male child. Despite her attempts to sabotage her auctions, Aya finds herself not only sold, but also transferred to the highest household in town, Mayor Rykor's home. The extensive security system in the home makes it hard for Aya to find a means of escape, and much to her surprise, she discovers that it's not the mayor who has purchased her; it's his nine year old son. There's a much of Katniss Everdeen in Aya-a familiar strength and determination. Aya is an independent thinker, strong and self-reliant. Despite some slow pacing in the middle, fans of dystopian and postapocalyptic YA fiction will thoroughly enjoy this read.-Sabrina Carnesi, Crittenden Middle School, Newport News, VA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2015
Grades 7-10 Fifteen-year-old Aya lives in the forest with a small group of women and girls, avoiding the cities where enslaved young women are auctioned off as breeders. Strong and self-reliant, she does not adjust well to the life of a slave when she is captured by a group of businessmen on a hunting trip. Confined to the Garden, where eligible young girls are groomed and made ready for auction, Aya fights back, frequently landing in solitary confinement. Ironically, her punishments afford her a possible way out, as she befriends a wolf pup and the mute but handsome horse-handler Kiran. Romance readers will find plenty to swoon over, while fans of dystopian futures will find this a compelling, if derivative, read. Aya's fierce determination and ability to think quickly and creatively in crises make her a great role model, and her nature-based faith lends an interesting balance to the action-driven tale of social justice. Simmons creates sympathetic yet intriguingly flawed characters, and tweaks familiar dystopian elements to excellent effect.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)