Author: Meaghan McIsaac
Book Link

It’s exciting to read a sci-fi book, especially one written for a younger audience, with attention to world building. Yes, this is a sci-fi book set in the future… and yes it has time travel elements… and yes, it’s dystopian (have we hit all our YA sci-fi cliches yet?), but it moves in a different direction.

Forgive the dad joke.

This story is centered around Pat, who is in a world that is overcrowded and with little resources to spare. To compound the issue, there are people in the world known as ‘Movers.’ They are connected to others in the future, called ‘Shadows’ and the movers have the ability to move shadows into the present time.

The issue is the government doesn’t want this happening as the world’s resources are already stretched thin and adding more to the mix only makes it worse. Hence, any time they detect someone moving, or in large suspicion of moving, they put that person to sleep.

Pat is not a mover, but has latent abilities. His sister and classmate, however, are a different story. Right away, they find themselves tangled up in an issue where they are on the run. The story keeps you hooked all the way until they end as they discover secrets about the world, the government and themselves. It ends on a massive cliffhanger.

While I found the book took a bit long to get going, the students I’ve offered it to said it gets exciting right away. This may be a case of my over-saturation with the genre in comparison to their eager and young minds. The fact the few who have read it blasted through it in less than a week speaks volumes of how it plays to a younger audience.

For something different in the YA Sci-fi genre, it’s worth picking up.