Dystopia of emotional control

3.5 stars

The last few years we've had worlds wrecked by viruses (I'm talking finctional here, but funnily enough, in the real world...), stories of women not allowed to speak, electrical powers, acid rain... just a few I've come across in my reading. An old favourite, back in Brave New World, looks at the chemical control of emotions. And here for young people, the theme is continued with an almost medieval feel to it - a sick world where only controlling emotions can keep things going.

Sisters Payton and Ani know the world of the hospital, King Jude's (begs the question who this might be!). Each with their own ideas about helping the world, their mother is sick within the walls with a water fever, unable to awaken, their methic (think doctor/scientist) father focused solely on a cure, at the expense of his parenting duties.

Payton too wants to help by becoming a methic. Ani wants to search the outer world for cures. Discovering an imprisoned boy one night with Midas Fingers (most readers will know this reference), a chain of events occurs that sends the sisters in vastly different directions, apart for the first time, with each forced to live a new life to stay safe and maybe find some answers.

A two-sided dramatic story, the sisters each show the different facets of this world while trying to help each other, their mother and solve the mysteries as to what is going on behind the scenes at hospitals like the one they've grown up in.

This was interesting enough, but didn't stand out for me greatly as a concept. I liked the young heroines though they seemed almost too young to be taking the actions they were having to. This would probably work well visually on a screen though.

For ages 11 and above.

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