In a future Taiwan, street kid Jason Zhou disguises himself as one of the wealthy elite in order to take down a murdering CEO.Jason's been alone since his mother died of pneumonia when he was 13, just another casualty of the disease-ridden streets of polluted future Taipei. He's been poor his whole life, but now Jason's living in luxury and wearing something only the ultrarich can afford: a Jin Corp suit and helmet, designed to keep Taiwan's polluted air from touching his lungs. Among the Taipei glitterati, Jason's success rides on his successfully pulling off a disguise as a rich American new to Taiwan. Taiwan-born Jason and his international crew of friends believe the head of Jin Corpand inventor of the suitshas been murdering anyone who agitates for cleaner air. The only way Jason can find the information they need is to pose as a high-rolling playboy romancing Jin's daughter, so Jason kidnaps a rich girl so they can use the ransom to finance his wealthy disguise. It's just bad luck that he's kidnapped Jin's daughter. A few seams show from the adaptation of "Blue Skies," Pon's short story from the anthology Diverse Energies (2012), fleshed out here into action occasionally overwhelmed by romance. Overall, though, the effect is successful. An exciting, socially conscious futuristic thriller. (Science fiction. 13-16) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Gr 9 Up-Jason Zhou lives in Taipei. In his futuristic world, the environment has reached rock bottom and the elite (Yous) live in special, regulated spaces and in Jin Corporation suits with filtered air. The Meis, or middle and lower classes, can't afford these luxuries. As a consequence, they are often ill and live short lives. When the leader of Jason's secret activist group is killed, they suspect the leader of Jin Corp is behind it. Jason must go undercover as one of the Yous that he despises. His mission is to befriend and extract information from Jin's daughter, Daiyu. But is he in for more than he bargained for? Narrator Roger Yeh's unique narrative style brings to life each character's layered personality and the developing romance. Yeh's easy navigation of the important social issues and futuristic world elements adds depth and believability to the story. VERDICT Fans of Divergent and The Hunger Games will enjoy listening to this book. A powerful addition to any dystopian thriller collection.-Jessica Moody, Olympus Junior High, Holladay, UT © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Jason Zhou lives in a near-future Taipei where the super-rich yous wear suits that protect them from the deadly pollution, while the meis struggle and die young. But Jason and a group of bright and clever friends are determined to change things, and to do that they need money. So Jason kidnaps a wealthy you girl; the ransom lets them put into motion a plan to destroy the powerful Jin Corporation that makes the suits and perhaps manufactures some of the deadly poisons that ensure their necessity. Jason, who must assume a you identity to get close to Jin Corp, is successful thanks to the escalating relationship between him and Mr. Jin's daughter, Daiyu. Unfortunately, she's the girl he kidnapped, and he must hope the memory-wiping he administered will hold. Pon excels as this society's architect, constructing sights, sounds, and smells that make this Taipei come alive. Her characters are layered, too, and though some predictability shoots through the plot, the action, attraction, and high stakes will keep readers satisfied.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2017 Booklist

In this SF thriller, adapted from a short story that appeared in the 2011 anthology Diverse Energies, teens struggle to survive in a pollution-choked Taipei, where the wealthy live in expensive environmental suits and everyone else risks sickness and early death. Jason Zhou, one of the have-nots, joins a group determined to infiltrate the rich and powerful in order to undermine Jin Corp and its monopoly on the protective suits. In Jason's undercover role, he grows close to his target, Jin Corp heiress Daiyu, but must avoid being seduced by power and privilege. But there's no time to waste with a deadly flu sweeping through the city. Pon's (Serpentine) dystopian setting is chilling but familiar-it's a standard class warfare scenario-as is the omnipresent, corrupt Jin corporation and the romance that brews between resourceful Jason and privileged-yet-rebellious Daiyu. The strength of Pon's story lies in the way it immerses readers in its gritty Taiwanese setting, and the emotional and cultural conflicts that arise as a result of this perspective. Ages 14-up. Agent: Bill Contardi, Brandt & Hochman. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

In a future Taipei, those with money, the "you" (defined as "to have"), wear environmental suits manufactured by Jin Corporation to protect them from deadly air pollution; the "mei" ("without") suffer short lives in abject poverty. A group of idealistic mei teens, including protagonist Jason Zhou, infiltrate the you to destroy Jin Corp and the stratified society from within. Searing cultural critique meets unique sci-fi thriller. (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Smart and zany, "The Go-Between" is the Y.A. book we could all use right now, set in a milieu rarely seen in pop culture: that of privileged Mexicans who don't have to sneak across the border - they have private jets. Camilla del Valle, the 16-year-old daughter of a telenovela star, never gives her ethnicity a second thought until her family relocates from Mexico City to Beverly Hills. At her boho private school, the other kids assume she's poor and on scholarship - which she does nothing to clear up, at first for fun and then because she doesn't know how. The result is plenty of comedy (she pretends to take the bus but secretly calls Ubers) but also cleareyed observations about race, class, identity and assimilation. Chambers (the Amigas series, "Plus"), who has co-authored memoirs by the chefs Eric Ripert and Marcus Samuelsson, even works in a captivating side plot about Cammi's developing passion for cooking, sparked by the school's hip African-American chef. The novel's characters may help readers see the complexities behind labels like "white" and "Latina," in a refreshingly un-preachy way. "Sure, they were a little racist," Camilla says about her Los Angeles friends. "But maybe we all are." THE LEAF READER By Emily Arsenault 230 pp. Soho Teen. $18.99. (Ages 14 and up) An occult thriller about tea-leaf reading may sound campy, but fear not - this first Y.A. novel by Arsenault ("In Search of the Rose Notes") is nothing like the movie "Ouija." Marnie, a high school junior, is self-conscious about her "bag lady" status. Her mother is AWOL, her brother just got out of rehab and her grandmother is a hoarder. When Marnie finds an old book about tasseomancy, she starts playing with fortunetelling. "I'd always liked the idea that your brain - or maybe the universe - could be trying to tell you secrets with little signs or symbols," she says. At first Marnie doesn't even believe her own readings. But her prophecies are on target, leading a star athlete, Matt, to ask for a reading. He's been getting emails from a female classmate who went missing months ago. There's a lot going on in this very skillfully constructed novel: the mystery behind the missing girl, the back story of Mamie's family, the fraught dynamic between Matt and Marnie (does he really like her or is he just using her?), the punishing class divisions of a small town. Arsenault never pushes the supernatural angle too hard, letting Marnie, and the reader, skate on the suspenseful edge of skepticism and belief. MIDNIGHT AT THE ELECTRIC By Jodi Lynn Anderson 272 pp. Harper Teen. $17.99. (Ages 14 and up) You could say that human history features two types of people: those who stay and those who leave. Anderson's ("Tiger Lily") moody, mesmerizing novel, an unusual hybrid of science fiction and historical fiction, is devoted to the restless souls who want to get the heck out. ft's 2065 and the Earth is dying because of climate change. Adri, a 16-year-old orphan, is training to join a team heading to Mars. Smart and resourceful, she's unable to relate to others. Sent to the Kansas home of a relative, she finds a journal and letters that tell the stories of Catherine, a teenager who lived there in 1934, and Lenore, a young woman in war-ravaged 1919 England determined to escape to the States. It's hard to forget Catherine's parched Dust Bowl farm, where even the morning toast and eggs are coated with grit, and fans of futuristic fiction will be drawn to Anderson's vision of flooded cities, space travel and inventions like the KitchenLite, used to print edible eggs and bacon. As the connection between the three women is satisfyingly revealed Adri, drawn to the long-dead strangers, begins to understand the human instincts to love, connect and leave something behind. Mars, she realizes, "would have a history one day too, and she would be a part of it." JUST FLY AWAY By Andrew McCarthy 260 pp. Algonquin. $17.95. (Ages 12 and up) Women who came of age watching John Hughes movies hold a special place in their hearts for McCarthy, a.k.a. the sensitive dreamboat Blane in "Pretty in Pink." Now a well-regarded travel writer, TV director and occasional actor, he has published his first novel - and it's fantastic, even if you're too young to have given a hoot about those twinkly eyes of his. Lucy Willows, who's 15, learns she has an 8-year-old half brother living right in her New Jersey town, the result of a brief affair her father had. Outraged by her father's betrayal and furious at her mother's seeming complacence, she hops a train, landing unannounced at the Maine home of her grandfather, a man she's met exactly once before. The story's unexpected turns will keep readers rapt, and Lucy's voice - reserved, blunt, sarcastic - feels as bone true as that of any Y.A. character in recent memory. McCarthy has real insight into the way adolescents withdraw emotionally, wrapping themselves in protective cocoons of silence. He captures that fleeting moment when a teenager knows she's doing something stupid but can't help herself. "The worse 1 felt, the more difficult it was to respond to him," she says of her boyfriend, a decent guy she cuts off without explanation, ft's a debut as stark and striking as the Maine landscape. WANT By Cindy Pon 327 pp. Simon Pulse. $18.99. (Ages 14 and up) Yep - it's another Y.A. novel set in a brutal future where society has been divided into haves and have-nots. And bingo! ft's up to a gutsy young have-not to take on the system. But before you dismiss Pon's book as yet another "Divergent" wannabe, stop and smell the pork buns. The novel's setting is a futuristic Taipei, vividly conjured: Markets sell live snakes for medicine, music blares in Mandarin, Taiwanese and English and characters chow down on steamed dumplings, rice porridge, eggplants in oyster sauce and stir-fried long beans "slathered in garlic and scallions." This is a dystopian thriller with flavor. Taipei's society is split into the wealthy you and the underclass mei. The you wear special suits and helmets that protect them from the city's pollution and viruses; the mei are destined to die by age 40. Our protagonist, the orphaned Jason Zhou, is part of a group determined to destroy Jin Corp, the pollution-generating company that manufactures the suits. Posing as privileged, Jason infiltrates you society, only to fall for Daiyu, daughter of Mr. Jin himself. While there's not a lot of nuance in this world of moral certainties, Pon does a bang-up job packing in skyscraper-scaling, flying (on airborne mopeds), hand-to-hand combat and hightech espionage. The world she's created is positively chilling. "Seeing each other face-to-face like this felt odd," Jason thinks, on first meeting Daiyu. "We'd become a society that barely showed our faces to strangers anymore." ONCE AND FOR ALL By Sarah Dessen 357 pp. Viking. $19.99. (Ages 12 and up) The world of high-end wedding planning might seem like a stretch for a Y.A. novel. Then again, from the view of a teenager, what is a wedding but the ultimate party, complete with open bars, conga lines and a chance to meet a cute stranger? Dessen has been turning out Y.A. best sellers since the '90s, and her storytelling has a breezy, Hollywood-style polish. Louna Barrett is the 17-year-old daughter of a society wedding planner. She's cynical about romance, prone to world-weary quips about delusional brides - partly because she's grown up in the wedding biz, partly because a year earlier a mysterious trauma left her with "a hard little rock of a heart." Then she meets Ambrose, a girl magnet whose "lazy, rich boy smile" rubs her the wrong way. We know they'll end up sparring, flirting and falling for each other, but the plot is buoyed by crackly dialogue and the comical series of over-the-top weddings the two help produce, which serve as foils to their own budding relationship. The story is bogged down by overwrought melodrama during flashbacks to our heroine's major tragedy, but still, it's a satisfyingly escapist rom-com that knows what it needs to deliver. "Attention from a cute boy," Louna muses. "You could power the world with it." ? CATHERINE hong, a contributing editor at Elle Decor, blogs about children's books at mrslittle.com.