Tomorrow girls#1 Behind the Gates

The novel that I have chosen for this month's book review is Tomorrow Girls#1 Behind the Gates. This is the first of four books about four girls living in the near future, a time when the US is locked in an endless war with the shadowy Alliance. Each book is told from the POV of a different girl, this one through the eyes of Louisa, a well-to-do thirteen year old who can't imagine what life was like as her parents tell it -- when people drove their own cars and actually visited other states, when people had privacy and no one wore identity bracelets from the moment they were born.
The interesting event I found in this book is Louisa's world is much different, where even the moderately well off live lives of deprivation and uncertainty as the War drags on and kids are shipped off to schools far away from home, with no one told where they are, just "to keep them safe". Safety concerns are used to cover a multitude of governmental sins, though we don't get much specific information about the situation. 

And now it's time for Louisa to go off to school. She's both scared and excited at this chance to get away from her protective parents. And bonus, they've managed to trick the ID bracelet of her best friend Maddie, whose parents are both off fighting, so the girls can go to school together, pretending to be twins. When they arrive at the Country Manor School, Louisa loves it. She's making new friends and finding herself successful at a a variety of survival skills like archery, riflery and orienteering. Maddie, however, resents the school's premise that these elite (ie, wealthy) kids are the future leaders of the country, and she hangs out with the school's misfits, including one girl who's convinced that something sinister is going on. And maybe she's not far off base ....

Jaiswarry a/p Sundaram
4 Cergas
28th March 2014