The Aftermath

June 30, 2014
“I am something else. Something called a character. A human trapped inside an intentional hell.” Claudia Virtue is living every gamer’s scariest fantasy—she’s a sentient puppet in a live-action, first-person shooter game. Her gamer is a girl named Olivia, capable of playing Claudia for 48 hours straight. Claudia believes a head injury jarred her into awareness, and the blow was struck by Declan, a boy who calls himself a “moderator.” Like Claudia, he’s sentient within the game; unlike Claudia, he knows how to get out. Alexander makes even the mundane acts of eating and resting into wellsprings of tension as Claudia, with no memory and only intermittent autonomy, struggles to piece together her situation and find a way out. The plotting only takes her so far—this is very much a “book one,” with no closure in sight by the final page, with more presumably to come in future installments. Despite the cliffhanger, Alexander has written an impressively jumpy, obsessive homage to the games she loves. Ages 14–up. Agent: Mollie Glick, Foundry Literary + Media.

July 15, 2014
In a world where reports of violence have become all too commonplace, life is no longer about building a future; it's about surviving the day.Claudia knows something's not right. Life in post-apocalyptic Nashville is hard. She and her crew have to fight for every scrap of food, every drop of water and whatever shelter they can find. Even so, she finds herself questioning her actions: Just why does she do one thing when her head is telling her to do something entirely different? It isn't until she is knocked out by a stranger on a raid that she realizes her sixth sense is awakening to a new awareness...she's being played. The world she's living in is someone else's game, and she's just a character being pushed from one level to the next. Her nightmares aren't nightmares-they're memories of a real life that exists outside the game. A stranger named Declan offers her a deal that might help her escape, but can he be trusted? This debut novel reads like a video game, as it is meant to. With an interesting premise and a few likable characters, the tone remains dark and intriguing, Claudia's present-tense narration appropriately gritty.Alexander closes with a cliffhanger ending that leaves readers wanting more; here's hoping the world she's built sustains multiple volumes. (Science fiction. 14 & up)

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September 1, 2014

Gr 8 Up-It is the year 2036, and violent crimes and wars between states are too much for the U.S. government to handle. Enter the Reconstruction Initiative, a team of scientists that develop a cure to vent people's violence into a game. Real-life avatars are played remotely, viewed on a screen, their actions and behaviors controlled like marionettes by microchip brain implants. The game is prescription play for rich kids to eradicate their evil gene. Olivia is a psychotic video gamer testing out this ultimate game on her real-life character, Claudia Virtue. While Olivia is racking up points, Claudia is playing to survive in this live-action game. Claudia is the main pawn in this game of violence. A glitch in her chip implant causes the teen to use her quick wit and independent reasoning skills to puzzle out the staged life she is living. Turning the tables around, she learns to read Olivia's mind. When a rogue character is introduced, he promises Claudia the freedom she craves. Drawn to her handsome new accomplice, she is also filled with mistrust. The Aftermath colony in which they live (formerly Nashville) is a wreckage of deserted buildings and a simulation of ravaged groups pitted against one another for survival. All-too-familiar themes are flawed by a circuitous plot that is confusing and difficult to follow. The story unfolds like Russian nesting dolls, one character hidden within another character, who is having a relationship with a character who is yet another character. Only those committed to this genre will survive to the end.-Alison Follos, formerly at North Country School, Lake Placid, NY

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014
Grades 9-12 The Aftermath is a video game designed to rehabilitate teenagers prone to violence. Obsessed-gamer Olivia is using Aftermath alter-ego Claudia Virtue to continue a relationship with Landon (Ethan in Aftermath) in spite of her parents' objections, and she employs a stalling tactic that forces Claudia to commit senseless violent acts in order to perpetuate the game. But Claudia is sentient, and her gradual self-awareness heaps guilt and reluctance on her already pain-wracked and starving body. When Declan, one of the game's moderators, offers her escape in return for her knowledge of the Aftermath's terrain, she accepts. Alexander has built a unique, disturbing world that gamers and nongamers alike can appreciate. It's a dystopia that begs for philosophical debate about good intentions versus ethics and the possibility of high-tech slavery in a world less grounded in reality. Here's hoping Alexander's flat, gamelike characters; complex narrative; and futuristic settings can sustain a sequel; the cliff-hanger ending demands more.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)