Skip to main content

STARTERS by Lissa Price



copyright date: March 2012
primarily marketed for: young adults (12 and up)

Starters by Lissa Price tells the story of Callie, a teenager living in a world where Spore Warfare has killed off anyone who was middle-aged.  When Spore Warfare was in use, the government gave the elderly (Enders) and those under the age of twenty (Starters) priority when it came to getting vaccinated because they were most at-risk.  So, it turned out they were the only survivors. 

Now, without her parents or any surviving grandparents, Callie is left to care for herself and her sickly younger brother.  She has support from a childhood friend, Michael, but that is not enough to keep them safe and well-fed. 

Callie is tempted to earn enough money to save her brother and friend by becoming a rental Starter.  She is invited to undergo a complete makeover, and earn a large sum of money simply for signing up to rent her body three times to Enders who want to experience what it is like to be young again. 

With no other options, Callie decides to sign-up.  She will have to go to the center where her mind will “sleep” in the body of an Ender for the duration of the rental, while her body walks out of the center with the mind the Ender controlling it.  

The problem is that during one of her rentals, she wakes up.  Her first instinct is to return to the rental center to report that things have gone awry, but then she hears a voice in her head that is not her own, telling her NOT to go back to the center and that the center is dangerous.  The voice is convincing and is enough to plant doubt in her mind.   However, before she knows it, she slips into her rental sleep again.  Things really start to get crazy for Callie when she wakes up again to find her body holding a gun. 

Callie’s story is not the best dystopian story I have read lately, but that is simply because the competition in this genre is so intense.  It is a really satisfying story with a whole different twist than anything else I’ve read. And I can't forget to mention that, of course, there is some well-written intense romance intertwined amongst the suspense.

While Callie’s story seems to be wrapped up at the end of this book, plenty of intriguing information is revealed to keep me guessing enough to make me want to read the upcoming sequel, Enders, due out in December.

Labels:

Comments

  1. ShannonJune 15, 2012 at 10:05 AM

    I've got a sampler of this at home right now. It does sound like something I would enjoy-especially if it has a twist that's not normal! Sometimes I wonder when authors are going to run out of new ideas-EVER? :)

    Shannon
    http://www.irunreadteach.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I HUNT KILLERS by Barry Lyga

copyright date: April 2012 primarily marketed for: young adults (high school) I’m just going to put this out there:  I like books about death.  I didn’t know this about myself as a reader until my students this year pointed out how many of the books I booktalk (basically all of them) involve someone who died or someone who is dying. I am not sure if that is just a me thing, or if that is a common thread in books since it is such a major part of life and conflict.  I’d like to think it is the latter. At any rate, I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga , is obviously my kind of book—it is quality literature with sophisticated vocabulary, and it is about death.  Jasper Dent, known as Jazz, is a teenager who is struggling to overcome the odds, to say the least.  His father, Billy Cornelius Dent, is the most infamous serial killer, with victims totaling triple digits.  Since his father’s arrest, Jazz has had to care for his grandmother ...
2 comments
Read more

JAKE AND LILY by Jerry Spinelli

copyright date: May 2012 primarily marketed for: intermediate readers (8 and up) This is another book for younger readers.   So, although the time you spend actually reading Jake and Lily by Jerry Spinelli won’t be long, the time this story spends traveling around in your heart will be immeasurable. Spinelli is a master at getting straight to the heart of what keeps people from accepting one another: differences.   Through the story of young twins Jake and Lily, he tells a story of tolerance, acceptance, and ultimately friendship.   Jake and Lily have a very special relationship.   They are able to connect with one another through dreams and across distances.   In fact, as they write their stories for us in alternating chapters, they don’t even need to read to know what they other has written.   Conflict settles into their lives when growing up threatens to come between them.   As Jake begins to spend more time with a g...
3 comments
Read more

DR. BIRD’S ADVICE FOR SAD POETS by Evan Roskos

copyright date: March 2013 primarily marketed for: young adults (high school) Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos begins “I yawp…” and ends, “Yawp!”   And if that isn’t enough to love, the middle is filled with quotes from Walt Whitman scattered amongst wise words from a pigeon therapist, and a story that is both genuinely funny and heartachingly real.   It is one of those stories that seems as if it was written simply for my own delight, but perhaps you, too, will fall in love with it. James is a teenager who suffers from anxiety attacks and a depression that is possibly part of bipolar disorder, though no official diagnosis is named in the book.   His older sister was recently kicked out of the house by his emotionally detached parents after she is expelled from school for an outburst that resulted in a fight.   As a means of coping with his mental state and the instability in his home life, James invents a pigeon ...
2 comments
Read more