| Number | Call Number | Branch | Status | Volume |
| 1 |
YA F Peterfreund Diana |
DR |
In at DR (Deer Run) |
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| 2 |
YA F Peterfreund Diana |
KL |
Out: Due May 28 2013 |
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| 3 |
YA F Peterfreund Diana |
KR |
In at KR (Kisker Road) |
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| 4 |
YA F Peterfreund Diana |
MK |
Out: Due May 25 2013 |
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| 5 |
YA F Peterfreund Diana |
MY |
In at MY (McClay) |
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| 6 |
YA F Peterfreund Diana |
SP |
In at SP (Spencer Road) |
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| In this mélange of sf, social commentary, and references to Jane Austen's Persuasion, Peterfreund starts strong, setting her story in a future world devastated by genetic engineering gone horribly wrong. While superenhanced people unwittingly altered their biology and produced mentally challenged children (the Reduced), the Luddites, people who had resisted DNA tinkering, retreated to offshore islands. In a stratified society, wealthy Luddites have controlled vast estates and cared for, controlled, and exploited the population of Reduced. Now, though, healthy children (Posts) are being born to the Reduced and are challenging the social order. Elliot, 18, struggles to keep her Luddite family's estate running in the face of her father's waste and cruelty. She yearns for a Post boy, Kai, she once rejected, and rereads their secret correspondence, a device that nicely fills in background detail. Elliot's heavy-handed inner debates go on too long, and many readers will wish for a more substantive resolution. Still, those reading for the romance will be enchanted by the starry feel-good ending. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews. | | | |
| Drawing heavily from Jane Austen's Persuasion, this story features a post-apocalyptic society consisting of the Reduced; their children, the Posts, who do not share their genetic limitations; and Luddite leaders. Luddite Elliot realizes she is still deeply in love with Kai, her childhood sweetheart, and must resist her entire upbringing to truly begin to see how she can change the world. | | | |
| Drawing heavily from Jane Austen's Persuasion, this Copyright 2012 Horn Book Magazine Reviews. | | | |
| A post-apocalyptic retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion scores high for ingenuity but loses points with sledgehammer morality. Elliot North is a Luddite, one of the elite destined to care for the mentally Reduced remnant after human genetic engineering went catastrophically wrong. But she has begun to question her duty; her family seems more interested in luxurious leisure than estate management. Her people will starve without recourse to forbidden technology, and more and more Post-Reduced children are being born. None of these "Posts" are more clever than Kai, her best friend until he ran away four years ago. Now he has returned with the fleet of Post explorers who could be the last hope for saving Elliot's heritage, but his bitterness toward Elliot may be hiding a more dangerous secret. The plot stays surprisingly faithful to Austen; the setting is cleverly updated to a futuristic dystopia, but it fails to explore the more interesting societal and technological ramifications. Instead, the original's subtle delineation of the nuances of class and social change is replaced with heavy-handed condemnations of slavery, anti-intellectualism and fundamentalist religion. The protagonists are now barely 18, and the compressed timeframe makes their remarkable accomplishments implausible, even with nigh-magical nanotechnology. However, as the emotional drama is similarly ramped to extremes, the target audience may be too swept away by righteous indignation and swoony romance to notice any lapses of logic. A perfectly pleasant read on its own, this could send readers to investigate the source--a happy outcome indeed. (Dystopian romance. 13 & up) Copyright Kirkus 2012 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved. | | | |
Dystopian, ideological, rebellious—Peterfreund's fantasy homage to Austen's Persuasion departs from the original in many respects, and with great success. Elliot North is a strong and creative woman, holding together the estate her father neglects and conducting secret agricultural experiments that defy "the protocols," which were established after genetic tinkering nearly destroyed humanity. Antitechnology "Luddites" took sanctuary underground, emerging as overlords of the mentally diminished above-ground survivors. Those survivors, the "Reduced," are now having normal children, and the Luddites' status is no longer unquestioned. Four years earlier, Elliot refused to elope with Kai, a mechanical prodigy and descendant of the Reduced. Now he's back as Capt. Malakai Wentforth, flirting with Elliot's pretty neighbor and being savage to Elliott. Resemblance to Austen's story lies largely in the superficialities of the plot—Peterfreund (Rampant) invokes less of Austen's subtlety or social critique, and she really doesn't need to. The story stands on its own, a richly envisioned portrait of a society in flux, a steely yet vulnerable heroine, and a young man who does some growing up. Ages 13–up. Agent: Deidre Knight, the Knight Agency. (June) [Page ]. Copyright 2012 PWxyz LLC | | | |
Gr 7 Up—Told partially through secret letters between forbidden childhood friends, this novel is a postapocalyptic retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion that will be a hit with fans of sci-fi romances such as Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion (S & S, 2002) and Catherine Fisher's Incarceron (Dial, 2010). Four years earlier, 18-year-old Elliot North, a member of the Luddite ruling class, refused to run away with Kai, one of her family's servants and her first love. In the years since his departure, Elliot has become responsible for her family's struggling estate and taking care of the Reduced, laborers who are treated as underclass servants. Technology has been forbidden since the Wars of the Lost, a fight Luddites think was the result of humans trying to improve on nature, and Elliot's options for advancing the estate are limited. When a fleet of former servants offers to rent the family's shipyards, Elliot knows that she cannot afford to refuse their money. She's excited to discover that Kai is one of the captains, but soon learns that he is not the boy she remembers, and, like Elliot, he has plenty of secrets. Epistolary sections help readers connect with Kai and Elliot and bridge the gap between the past and present. Peterfreund takes her time developing characters and the political and social realities of a stratified society. The plot, nonetheless, moves along at a steady clip. Readers will keep turning the pages right up to the end.—Leigh Collazo, Ed Willkie Middle School, Fort Worth, TX [Page 133]. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. | | | |
| For Darkness Shows the Stars is a post-apocalyptic parallel to Jane Austen's Persuasion. After a terrible genetic accident and the Wars of the Lost nearly destroy humanity, Luddite lords, saved by their contempt for technology and modern medicine, manage large but declining estates worked by the greatly diminished "Reduced" caste and their descendants, the CORs (Children of the Reduced) and Posts (rebellious "Post-Reduction" CORs). Elliot North manages her ruthless and inept father's estate. Striving to maintain appearances (and to feed their laborers), she rents an adjoining estate and shipyard to Post's Admiral Nicodemus and Felicia Innovation, and the Cloud Fleet, led by Captain Malakai Wentforth, Elliot's childhood infatuation who years previously had fled to a Post enclave. Elliot's Luddite beliefs are constantly at odds with her benevolence and sense of duty, forcing difficult decisions. Will Elliot and Kai rekindle their romance; will she save the North estate and shipyard? Austen fans will suspect how this story ends. Diana Peterfreund authored the Killer Unicorn series (Rampant [HarperCollins, 2009/VOYA June 2009] and Ascendant [HarperCollins, 2010/VOYA December 2010]), the Secret Society books, Morning Glory, and several nonfiction titles and short stories. Her most recent addition succeeds in recasting Austen's characters to bring her themes to a futurist society and provide wry comment on life in the twenty-first century. The book supplements other Jane Austen-inspired books, spinoffs, sequels, and adaptations, and will appeal to science fiction and romance fans alike.—Christine Miller 3Q 3P M J Copyright 2011 Voya Reviews. | | |
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