Fear is the mind killer...

Akaela by E.E. Giorgi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Here are some words I never thought I'd say: I actually liked a YA dystopian novel.

The other books in this genre that I've read have left me cold. I often found myself unconvinced by the premise, bored by Mary-Sue characters, and/or underwhelmed by lackluster writing. I found Akaela to be a step up in every respect - a book that kept me up at night with my heart in my mouth and my eyes glued to the page.

In the aftermath of a deadly plague, a group of survivors coalesced into a tribe: the Mayake. To compensate for their severe physical deformities, they implant themselves with powerful robotic prosthetics. They are simultaneously crippled and superhuman. Their society is close-knit and adherent to a rigid moral code. They're resilient, they're resourceful, and they're almost sickeningly deferential to authority.

The story is told from two perspectives. Akaela is a young woman whose fearlessness puts her in danger, both inside and outside the Mayake community. When her father goes missing during a diplomatic mission, Akaela becomes determined to find out what happened to him. Her older brother, Athel, is the other narrator.

The story is fast-paced from the start, and includes some passages of almost unbearable tension. There's a recurring theme of having to question how much you can trust your friends, your abilities, and even your senses. There's a definite feeling of the stakes getting higher and higher as the story goes on. The world-building is mostly pretty balanced, creating a rich portrait of the setting and history without inundating the reading with too much information at once. The cast of characters is well-constructed. I came to love Akaela, but maintained an interesting mix of appreciation and skepticism about the others.

And for all the readers who are tired of the love triangles and other romantic tropes of YA - this book is wonderfully free of all that. But it's full of heart. Akaela's devotion to those close to her, both human and animal, has a good chance of bringing tears to your eyes.

If I were to identify a flaw in the book, it would be that at first, Akaela's and Athel's voices were a little too alike and there was some needless backtracking every time the point of view would switch. I questioned why Athel needed to be a narrator at all, before the contrast between their mentalities became more evident later on. So, maybe my rating is closer to 4.5 stars.

The ending wraps things up almost too quickly. But it's saved from being too neat by a strong undercurrent of doubt about whom to trust, and what the future will be like.

This book shines as a standalone, but I hope it continues into a series. I'm curious about what the characters will do next and how, if at all, their civilization will survive.

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