Sinless

November 27, 2017
TV writer Tarkoff’s debut novel, a by-the-numbers dystopian near-future YA story (inexplicably being marketed to adults) set in a world in which “good” or “bad” actions result in divine punishments of beauty or disfigurement, boasts little that’s new or interesting. Grace Luther, as gorgeous as her name is ludicrous, is the daughter of a cleric—an earthbound representative of the Great Spirit who has taken over the entire planet, eliminating all traditional religions as actual divine punishment for good and bad behavior becomes manifest. Grace’s mother died when the Revelation hit, and her best friend, Jude, was taken by the clerics after he caused a car accident. Her life is turned upside-down when a man attempts to rape her and never suffers divine consequences, and again when she learns that Jude is alive, both incidents revealing that the world is more complicated than she’d thought. Tarkoff’s work vanishes in the large recent corpus of dystopian works mixing social commentary and teen angst, with nothing to recommend it over its peers.

November 15, 2017
Tarkoff's debut novel follows a young woman's coming-of-age in a dystopic near future where moral character and physical beauty go hand in hand...or do they?The world has been transformed by the judgment of God, known as the Great Spirit in the global religion that dominates Earth by 2031. "Faith" is no longer the evidence of things not seen: instead, it's starkly visible, as committing a sin leads to instantaneous physical degradation, illness, and even death. A handsome man is by default a good person; a disfigured woman did something to deserve it. The world is at peace--the peace of a people obsessed with piety and desperate to avoid the Great Spirit's divine justice. But Grace Luther, teenage daughter of an influential pastor, learns that faith is never so simple when she meets a gorgeous young man whose good looks turn out to be deceiving. The riddle of how this is even possible leads Grace to face the ghosts of her own past--a dead best friend, her own mother--and to question whether divine justice is really just, or even divine at all. Grace's questions bring her to the attention of powerful factions and dangerous people; what began as girl-meets-boy escalates to geopolitical intrigue, espionage, daring rescues, and Grace's growing, bittersweet self-awareness of what it really means to be a good person. What will Grace do with her epiphanies, and what sort of person will she become? That's for the next book in the series to answer, of course.Clever worldbuilding elevates the story above its occasional moral ham-handedness, and the plot is juicy enough to carry readers to the sequel.

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November 15, 2017
Where were you when you were Converted? Everyone remembers the spiritual release that manifested itself in the saved as perfect physical beauty and vibrant health. Seventeen-year-old Grace Luther was one of those, the pious daughter of a cleric on a first-name basis with the Prophet Joshua, the man who predicted the exact date and time of the Revelation. From a federal penitentiary, Grace recalls her youthful experiences of the years after 2025, relaying the story with her adolescent naivete and teenage rebellion intact. She firmly believed beauty reflected truth and those who lied, committed a crime, or disbelieved would be punished by losing their beautyand in extreme cases might even die. Then she met Ciaran, a handsome teen who could do whatever he liked without being punished. His actions called her convictions into question, leading her toward doubt, defiance, and eventual imprisonment. But how did she get there? Tarkoff's debut and the first in her Eye of the Beholder series challenges the reality of what it means to be beautiful.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)