July 1, 2017
Julia Jaynes has always known she's special, just as she's always known she has to hide her special talents and abilities; she's a member of a select community of just a handful of families: human in many respects while so much more in others, they live among ordinary people but hold themselves apart. Her father has made it very clear that to be accepted into their clan, she must maintain a low profile, keep her abilities under wraps, and never, under any circumstances, mingle with an outsider but stay only with her own handful of beautiful young peers. Her own glossy, well-groomed white family, Julia notes, looks "like they'd externalized being members of the One Percent." She wants to do as he asks, to be included in the tribe when they relocate to their next place, but she knows that she's different. And when a chance meeting with a handsome, young outsider with tan skin and "almond-shaped eyes" shows her a new and very possibly unique ability, she's faced with a choice: to blend in and be accepted or to live a very singular life out on her own. Weisenberg frames teen issues in an eerie, unusual environment where nothing is quite as simple as it seems. Julia narrates, slowly revealing the rules of her peculiar community in a first-person narration that relies on concept rather than style to turn the pages. Readers who stay with Julia have a mighty twist at the end to look forward to. (Paranormal thriller. 14-18)
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August 1, 2017
Gr 8 Up-After Julia reveals a little too much in public, thus endangering her group, Novak (aka her Dad) does the unthinkable. He asks Julia to separate herself entirely, withdraws her from the posh private school everyone in their group attends, and enrolls her in public school. Once there, she has to dial everything back even further-from tennis prowess to near-prescient academic inclinations. Determined to lie low and earn an invitation back into the fold before Relocation, Julia knows she should have nothing to do with John Ford, the boy who observed the incident where she revealed too much and took the fall for it, and who now happens to sit right by her in English class. She knows, but finds it nearly impossible to heed her own warnings, as she becomes more deeply connected to him, learns more about herself, the group, and what choices she might be forced to make. This reads like realistic fiction with a few slight dashes of sci-fi and dystopian fantasy. Though technically a superhuman species, Julia's extended family is portrayed more like a cult, and the plot unfolds more as a brief glimpse into the psychology behind this arrangement than a well-developed alternate society. The plot zooms in closely on Julia and her struggle to reconcile her identity with that of the group and her relationship with John. VERDICT Readers interested in a fully realized science fiction tale will likely come up short, though teens seeking an easy read about forbidden passion will find something to love.-Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, NJ
Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
September 15, 2017
Grades 9-12 Julia is rich, talented, smart, and almost immortal, part of a private ruling class of superhumans hiding in plain sight. She's also in big trouble. At a gathering gone awry, her powers overwhelm her, exposing her to the suspicious human world, and as punishment, her father sentences her to life in a human high school. It's there that she's drawn to star tennis jock John, who has secrets she's determined to uncover. Likewise, John is bound and determined to find out her secrets, especially when she's not trying too hard to conceal her own truth. Away from her friends and family, among the outsiders, Julia has to decide what's important to her, and how to go on when the most important people in your life have left you. Debut author Weisenberg is off to an ambitious start, mixing mystery with science fiction and a heaping dose of romance. While her premise is intriguing, it's slow to start, and this does drag a little, making it best for larger collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)
July 1, 2018
Julia belongs to an elite race of highly evolved humans with superpowers; her people hide themselves in plain sight among the Outsiders, or ordinary humans. When she accidentally exposes her family, her father sends Julia to a public high school, where she falls in love with an all-around good, human guy. Weisenberg writes clumsily and focuses more on the tepid romance than on the sci-fi mystery of Julia's origins.
(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)