The Thousandth Floor by Katharine McGee

The amount of times I have suggested this book to someone, you’d think I would be able to say the title without getting tongue tied! However, that’s not yet the case, but that’s okay, because you get to read it, instead of having to hear me attempt to say it!

This book is like Gossip Girl, but on steroids. It’s set in the future, where an entire city - New York to be precise - has been transformed into a single tower; a tower with 1000 floors. The higher up the tower you live, the higher your social standing and, most likely, your wealth.

In the tradition of Gossip Girl, we get different perspectives of various teens who live in the tower - male, female, gay, straight, rich, poor, white, people of colour. The diversity is nice, because it’s unthinkable that there would be only straight, white, rich people in a city.

We open the book with a girl falling from the top of the tower. When I read the intro the first time, I was a little sceptical as to what the point in reading the book was, given that we know how it ends. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that I almost forgot about said girl - except when someone was on the roof - because I was so sucked into the various stories of the teens.

World building was good - humans, sci-fi not fantasy - set in a world that is clearly ours but set in the future. Technology sounds both fascinating and I want it, while simultaneously sounding somewhat horrifying, especially the quantum computer (Nadia) one of the characters has installed IN THEIR OWN HEAD!

The author does a wonderful job of weaving together the storylines. Some of them are obvious - schoolmates, siblings etc - while others are a little different - the girl from down tower who was a cleaner for someone further up tower. They all come together by the end of the book, and while I was excited to hear that there was a sequel, I wasn’t unhappy with the ending, had it been a stand alone book.

If you like Gossip Girl; if you like Pretty Little Liars; if you like Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies - give this one a shot.

Content warnings: discussions of mental health, discussions of (kind of) incest, death by falling, drug use, kissing, same-sex relationships.

Overall Rating: solid 4.5 - I had a friend with dyslexia who said this was the first book they had ever read and enjoyed - so much that they got it out more than once!

Posted by Li

Catalogue link: The Thousandth Floor

The Wall by John Lanchester

‘Hurry up and wait. That’s the motto which governs most lives. It’s the motto which governs the Wall, for sure. The only thing worse than when nothing happens is when something does.’ 

The Wall is a fascinating dystopian novel set in the near future. A catastrophic climatic event has occurred which is vaguely referred to as 'The Change'. Britain is cold and foggy and the coastline is surrounded by a massive wall to keep out the 'Others': desperate refugees in boats trying to find shelter. The novel builds suspense by providing limited historical details, and explaining the present day in a very narrow, first-person point of view. This works well by building tension and curiosity in the reader.

Kavanagh is a man in his twenties who is starting his compulsory two-year duty on the Wall as a Defender. He describes the cold and dreariness of long 12 hour shifts, along with the fear of over-the-wall attacks from Others, coupled the risk of himself being put out to sea if The Others are successful. Those Others who are allowed to stay become ‘Help' and serve the elite of the population.
There are also ‘Breeders’, a role coveted by Kavanagh and his girlfriend; as those who have children are well looked after by the State.

In between stints on the Wall, normal life with his parents continues; albeit with an underlying yet unspoken parental guilt. When Kavanagh leaves, his parents revert back to watching surfing videos from the old days - an historical pastime as the beaches are now long gone. All is not grim however, life continues and is described by Kavanagh in a chatty way and not without humour.

The Wall could be described as an environmental parable of what could happen to society and our environment as a consequence global weather events; a refugee crisis; and perhaps even Brexit with a Trump-type Wall thrown in. Either way it is an interesting, clever, and scarily plausible novel.

Reviewed by Katrina

Catalogue link:  The Wall

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

“If you came across AN ABSOLUTELY REMARKABLE THING at 3 a.m. in New York City… Would you keep walking? Or do the one thing that would change your life forever?”

April May is 23 years old and working at a small internet start-up in New York but her true passion is art and design. Leaving work in the early hours of the morning she comes across the most beautiful sculpture she has ever seen, towering at over 10 feet tall like a transformer wrapped in samurai armour. In the spur of the moment she makes a decision to call her friend Andy who films a video of April and the sculpture, nicknamed Carl, and uploads it to YouTube. When they wake up the next day, the video has gone viral.

Weirdly, Carl is not unique to New York. Carls have popped up in many of most populated cities worldwide, all at the same moment while no one was looking. All CCTV footage was stopped worldwide and any audio recordings contain a faint trace of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”. It quickly becomes obvious that the Carl’s physical properties defy all known science and the origins of Carl becomes a worldwide mystery and obsession. As the world’s first documenter of the Carls, April May is in high demand and her life is turned upside down.

I really enjoyed reading An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. I have found that there are not many books which have a main character who is not a teen or an adult that turns 20 and magically has their whole life together. The book explores how the internet and social media has changed the way we think and consume information along with the highs and lows of fame along with friendship and finding yourself.

Hank Green is not a new name in the entertainment industry. Hank, along with his brother John, run the successful YouTube channel vlogbrothers with over 3 million subscribers. Hank’s brother, John Green, has written many bestselling young adult books including The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns. I will be eagerly awaiting the sequel to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, which does not have a release date quite yet!

Reviewed by Kristen Clothier

Catalogue link: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing