Mad Max for the eco-generation - it's a superlative dystopian thriller about courage and freedom, with a love story at its heart. There are 'haves' and 'have nots' - those who can afford oxygen to live and those who can't. But there's a secret resistance which 16 year old Alina is part of and she's determined to fight back the terrifying regime that runs life inside the world of the 'haves' in what's known as the Pod. But to survive she needs the help of a band of rebels who are protecting an enclavee of trees that are keeping them alive....
Years after the Switch, life inside the Pod has moved on. A poor Auxiliary class cannot afford the oxygen tax which supplies extra air for running, dancing and sports. The rich Premiums, by contrast, are healthy and strong. Anyone who opposes the regime is labelled a terrorist and ejected from the Pod to die. Sixteen-year-old Alina is part of the secret resistance, but when a mission goes wrong she is forced to escape from the Pod. With only two days of oxygen in her tank, she too faces the terrifying prospect of death by suffocation. Her only hope is to find the mythical Grove, a small enclave of trees protected by a hardcore band of rebels. Does it even exist, and if so, what or who are they protecting the trees from? A dystopian thriller about courage and freedom, with a love story at its heart.
Sarah Crossan has lived in Dublin, London and New York, and now lives in East Sussex. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Literature before training as an English and drama teacher at the University of Cambridge. The Weight of Water and Apple and Rain were both shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. In 2016, Sarah won the CILIP Carnegie Medal as well as the YA Book Prize, the CBI Book of the Year award and the CLiPPA Poetry Award for her novel, One.
Sarah is the go-to writer of the free verse novel in the UK and Ireland, and is the current Laureate na nÓg (Ireland’s Children’s Literature Laureate). Her theme as Laureate is #WeAreThePoets, a two-year project inspiring young people to express themselves through poetry and verse.
