This is book is amazing. Shusterman is an extremely gifted author who creates vivid new worlds. His characters are so believable that they become real. You relate with them and struggle with them. Their fear becomes your fear. His world is not our own, but how easily it could be. The rationalization makes sense and in our current climate you could see how easily something so horrific could start taking place.

If anything this book was too real.

I am the parent of three teenagers all of which have special needs. While they are all amazing they also have struggles. There is a long history of doing away with children like my own. They were put in camps during the Holocaust, shoved in unsafe asylums, and any number of atrocity. In Shusterman's world my children would not stand a chance. I think this is why it hit a little too close to home to me. I just cannot see myself being able to continue reading this series.

Yet it is a story that needs to be told. People need to think about the value they put on other people's lives and the justifications they use to devalue them.