ALA Booklist (Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

Lots of YA novels begin with a character arriving at a new boarding school, but it is safe to say there has never been a boarding school like this. Perennial foster kid Benson arrives at Maxfield Academy armed with an unexpected scholarship and some cautious optimism, but within minutes of arriving he realizes something is terribly wrong. There are no adults. There are towering walls topped with barbed wire. Messages are sent by computer to instruct the teens in both academic pursuits and paintball war games. Most immediately worrisome is that the student body has split itself into three warring factions: the Society (tasked with keeping order), Havoc (food preparation as well as serious attitude), and the V's (whose chief shared trait is a desire to escape). This is good old-fashioned paranoia taken to giddy extremes, especially when a totally implausible t nonetheless enjoyably insane ist upends the plot in the final act. Take Veronica Roth's Divergent (2011), strip out the angst, add a Michael Grant level storytelling pace, and you have this very satisfying series starter.

Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

Benson's new boarding school is...unusual. There are no adults; student gangs teach, cook, clean, etc., under the gaze of security cameras. And students can't leave, unless they're given "detention" (i.e., killed). When Benson discovers another of the school's menacing secrets, he knows he must escape. Readers won't be able to break away from this tense (and exceedingly violent) sci-fi thriller.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In a chilling, masterful debut, Wells gives the classic YA boarding school setting a Maze Runner twist, creating an academy of imprisoned teenagers who must fight to survive when the rules change daily, and the punishment for breaking those rules is death. Seventeen-year-old Benson Fisher, tired of foster homes, applies for a scholarship to Maxfield Academy in New Mexico, hoping for a fresh start. Instead, he is trapped with roughly 70 other teens divided into three factions, with no teachers, no real classes, and no chance of escape at a school overseen by the mysterious and sinister "Iceman," who doles out punishments and awards points. Though Wells doesn't provide much detail about Benson's past, his honesty and determination to escape make him a compelling protagonist, and it's easy to get drawn into his fellow students' plights as well. There are plenty of "didn't see that coming" moments and no shortage of action or violence. With its clever premise, quick pace, and easy-to-champion characters, Wells's story is a fast, gripping read with a cliffhanger that will leave readers wanting more. Ages 13-up. (Oct.)

School Library Journal (Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

Gr 9 Up-Aretha's history of the Black Power movement begins where many Civil Rights accounts leave off, with the formation of organizations that rejected nonviolence as too slow and ineffectual a means of achieving racial equality. Black Power is often associated with militancy, and both sides of that image are presented here. Aretha examines the foundations of the movement and the backlash against it, the Black Pride and Black Arts movements, and the state of Black Power in the age of Obama. Illustrations are mainly photographs, both historical and contemporary; the one exception is a page from a coloring book put out by the FBI to discredit the Black Panthers. The caption is slightly unclear, but the text resolves the matter. This is a solid introduction to a subject that teens may have read about in fiction like Kekla Magoon's The Rock and the River (S &; S, 2009). Rebecca Donnelly, Loma Colorado Public Library, Rio Rancho, NM