Then a member of the Board makes her an offer she can’t refuse – and sweetens it by making it an offer that guarantees protection for those she loves.

Unless she gets killed as a collateral in someone else’s Alt battle – or the people of the Surround attack – her days of violence are behind her. West figures she has all the time she needs to heal.

Did she deny Kersh the soldiers it will need to stay alive? Does it matter to anyone but me that she is angsting over a city of killers? Guess not. Not the killing, but that she helped people cheat on their ultimate survival exam. She is seeing a counselor because she feels some guilt about that. West had become a Striker – an assassin who kills other people’s Alts – to train for her own ultimate battle. She is with her beloved Chord, attends school and everything is pretty much hunky dory except for the Striker marks on her arms. This is book two so when we meet up with West she has finished her kill and is living the grand life as a Complete. I’d be curious if my kid only stood fifty-fifty odds of survival. They also seem to accept as fact that Kersh – with its collateral damage kills and blood bathed streets – is somehow better than what is outside the walls.

The motto of the state is “Be the one, be worthy.” Apparently, I am the only person who questions just what about being a teenaged killer makes one worthy since the population seems to pretty much accept this as fact. The Alt battles are how the state creates a defense-ready population, and the iron wall surrounding the city is how they protect people from those on the outside (the apparently even more violent folks in the Surround). hunter begins, with the winner awarded all that being a citizen of Kersh provides. When your Alt code (numeric genetic marker) comes up-any time between ages 10 and 20-you are notified, activated and a lethal game of hunter vs. Called Alts (for alternate self) they are genetically identical but are raised separately, creating lookalikes that are unique individuals. To overcome human sterility – and to ensure survival of the fittest – children are bred in the Board’s labs as twins. West Grayer lives in a society where it is kill or be killed. Then there are those books that make us regret the trend was ever started. Others, like Ann Aguirre’s Enclave and Pierce Brown’s Red Rising, show that following a trend can still produce a good product. Some, like The Hunger Games and Divergent, set the standard. Dystopian young adult novels are thick on the ground right now.

Divided elsie chapman