In a climate-ravaged future, sisters Celia and Kasey live in one of eight eco-cities built to provide residents with clean air, water and shelter. But when Celia unexpectedly heads outside—breaking away from their structured, locked-down-in-a-bubble lifestyle and subsequently disappearing—Kasey decides she must retrace her sister’s mysterious last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know.
In the future, Earth suffers from significant climate disasters. To be safe, some of the most elite families have built eco-cities in the sky. They are safe from the contaminants and natural disasters that still plaguing the land. Yet, to live sustainably, people have to live, well, less. Everything besides eating, sleeping and exercise is done in holographic mode from their stasis pods. Real-life is just too volatile to waste precious time and resources upon.
This is the world where sisters Kasey and Celia live. Kasey is fine with living in a pod, since she struggles with human interaction and understanding emotions anyway. Her sister Celia, however, is just the opposite. You could say she has more of a lust for life, and she frequently proves it by going outside of the boundaries to experience that life directly.
Even though they’re so different, Kasey and Celia are each other’s best friends. Then one day, Celia mysteriously disappears.
Kasey must face the fact that her missing sister likely went outside and met her end. But she can’t live with that idea. So, Kasey decides to retrace her sister’s steps, and in the process meets a hacker who had helped Celia remove her computer interface. Together they find out that Celia had been sneaking out of their restricted eco-city to swim in the ocean. Unfortunately, authorities, including her father, had been covering up the fact that there’s a lethal poison in the ocean.
In alternating chapters, we also read about Cee. She is alone on an abandoned island and can’t remember how she got there or much about her life. But she is compelled to find Kay, her missing sister whom she barely remembers.
Amid megaquakes and a collapsing world, these two sisters must struggle to find one another. And in that pursuit, they might even find a way to save the failing world and the humans living on it.
There are no Christian beliefs or references to religion.
The most vital belief system is the idea that science and conservation are mankind’s ultimate saviors. Humanity has ruined and poisoned the earth in this future world. In fact, in this reality, families are ranked by their ancestral environmental impact. Those who worked to save the planet are ranked high and are afforded extra privileges. Celia’s and Kasey’s families are at the top because of their mom’s work to save the environment. Some families are not allowed to find eco-city protection if their families heavily polluted the Earth in the past.
Kasey and Celia’s mom has died. Meanwhile, their father has buried himself in his deceased wife’s work and is absent from his daughters’ lives. His absence plays a part in Celia’s disappearance.
The hacker, named Actinium, had parents who died in a plane crash that also took the life of Kasey and Celia’s mother. Actinium’s kind aunt raised him and his parents’ passing. But he is now of the mindset that humanity should die out, paying a price for the way it destroyed the Earth.
There are several uses of the f- and s-words.
A character tries to kill Cee a couple of times. However, this individual also makes a personal and damaging sacrifice in order to eventually help Cee and save a large group of hibernating people.
Characters drink mixed drinks at a party.
Cee admires someone’s naked body and reclaims Celia’s memories of dating and being intimate with several different boys. Cee and a boy named Hero make out and eventually have sex, which is glorified as OK because they love each other, even though they’re not married. While not extremely graphic or physically descriptive, there are a couple of pages of details that would give this book a PG-13 rating if it were a movie.
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The author talks about the ones we are meant to find. And in the end, the sisters learn and find themselves. What does the Bible say about finding yourself? What does Scripture have to say about our identity from God’s point of view? What does God think about His creation and our purpose? (See Genesis 1-3, John 10:10, Romans 6:4, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 1:11 and 2 Timothy 1:9.)
What do you think of the concept of eco-cities? Is it right to exclude and punish those who have not been as good at conservation, or those who have not followed a community’s rules? If only a few could survive a natural disaster, what would you do?
What is this story’s worldview when it comes to the environment? How do you think our faith as Christians should influence the ways that we think about the environment?
The plot twists in this book are well written and unexpected. And this sci-fi tale indirectly raises some interesting questions about conservation, science and what role humans play in aiding or damaging the world we live in. That said, parents of younger readers should note that there are some language issues and sensuality to deal with here as well, as well as an overall worldview about environmentalism that you’ll want to talk about in depth from a biblical perspective.
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Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.
Review by Danielle Pitzer
