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I purchased the ebook of Blackout after getting to know Kit Mallory during Twitter's #LGBTWIP event. The novel presents an authoritarian future uncomfortably close to a real life possibility.
When an energy crisis hits the UK, a hot mess of corporations and wealthy people take over the government and establish an tyrannical regime known as "the Board." After a massive hate campaign to demonize the citizens of the UK's north, the Board overnight builds a wall to separate the North from the South and cuts off all power and water to the North. Even after leaving these Northern thousands to die, the Board insists there's not enough resources, so strict rationing and omnipresent police are the new normal.
Enter Skyler, a wizard hacker. Enter Mackenzie, a master thief. Enter Angel, a mysterious woman with a reputation for healing and killing. After they accidentally uncover the Board's latest harrowing plan, they decide it's time to not just survive the Board's brutality, but to actively fight against it.
Friends, reading Blackout was really, really hard. Mallory's eye for rain-soaked detail left haunting images in my mind. Both Skyler and Mackenzie are illegal refugees from the North, and Mallory takes pains to explore how deeply this affects nearly every aspect of their life, from lack of medical care to choice of living place. Sorrow and mourning were visceral, touchable things. While the premise is reminiscent of Saci Lloyd's [b: The Carbon Diaries|4935015|The Carbon Diaries 2015 (Carbon Diaries, #1)|Saci Lloyd|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1273722854s/4935015.jpg|5000676], Blackout is much, much darker, and perhaps that difference is reflective of how much has changed since 2009, with Brexit.
The identity rep, which initially drew me to the book, seems pretty spot-on. It's cheering to see other reviewers with matching identities be happy. This might be my American background talking, but one area left unexplored was race/ethnicity. From my understanding, Asian and Middle-Eastern UK citizens are often the target of discrimination, especially if they practice Islam. The novel uses Northerner as its speculative fiction cipher, but I guess I wanted that complicated. For all the vivid world-building, the characters were described blink-and-you-miss-it briefly. Does our reality of race touch this fictional world at all?
In any case, Blackout is a fantastic piece of YA dystopia fiction, and I dearly hope it stays fiction. I recommend it to anyone who'd like to brave a grim and terrifying possibility, with a side of two women kissing and excellent OCD rep. I await the sequel with no tiny amount of (the good kind of) dread.
When an energy crisis hits the UK, a hot mess of corporations and wealthy people take over the government and establish an tyrannical regime known as "the Board." After a massive hate campaign to demonize the citizens of the UK's north, the Board overnight builds a wall to separate the North from the South and cuts off all power and water to the North. Even after leaving these Northern thousands to die, the Board insists there's not enough resources, so strict rationing and omnipresent police are the new normal.
Enter Skyler, a wizard hacker. Enter Mackenzie, a master thief. Enter Angel, a mysterious woman with a reputation for healing and killing. After they accidentally uncover the Board's latest harrowing plan, they decide it's time to not just survive the Board's brutality, but to actively fight against it.
Friends, reading Blackout was really, really hard. Mallory's eye for rain-soaked detail left haunting images in my mind. Both Skyler and Mackenzie are illegal refugees from the North, and Mallory takes pains to explore how deeply this affects nearly every aspect of their life, from lack of medical care to choice of living place. Sorrow and mourning were visceral, touchable things. While the premise is reminiscent of Saci Lloyd's [b: The Carbon Diaries|4935015|The Carbon Diaries 2015 (Carbon Diaries, #1)|Saci Lloyd|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1273722854s/4935015.jpg|5000676], Blackout is much, much darker, and perhaps that difference is reflective of how much has changed since 2009, with Brexit.
The identity rep, which initially drew me to the book, seems pretty spot-on. It's cheering to see other reviewers with matching identities be happy. This might be my American background talking, but one area left unexplored was race/ethnicity. From my understanding, Asian and Middle-Eastern UK citizens are often the target of discrimination, especially if they practice Islam. The novel uses Northerner as its speculative fiction cipher, but I guess I wanted that complicated. For all the vivid world-building, the characters were described blink-and-you-miss-it briefly. Does our reality of race touch this fictional world at all?
In any case, Blackout is a fantastic piece of YA dystopia fiction, and I dearly hope it stays fiction. I recommend it to anyone who'd like to brave a grim and terrifying possibility, with a side of two women kissing and excellent OCD rep. I await the sequel with no tiny amount of (the good kind of) dread.