Crazy House

LoveReading Says

June 2017 NewGen Book of the Month.

In a Nutshell: Twins fight for freedom under an authoritarian system

This slickly plotted dystopian thriller set in a terrifying totalitarian regime will keep fans of The Hunger Games gripped to the very last word.

Seventeen-year-old twins Cassie and Becca (known to each another as Careful Cassie and Ridiculous Rebecca) are alike as the idiomatic chalk and cheese. Becca is a born rebel who pushes the boundaries of their strictly regimented society to the limit, while Cassie never steps out of line. When Becca disappears, Cassie is on her own. Their ma has supposedly been “taken away for a mood-adjust”, while Pa is dying in the Lingering Wing. And Becca isn’t the only one to have vanished. Other kids and teenagers have gone too. But while the Provost of their administrative region accuses the disappeared of being “Outsiders, bad citizens, who don't want to live by the cell rules”, Becca’s narrative from within the “crazy house” presents an entirely different interpretation. Inside the prison, executions abound and inmates are subjected to horrific challenges. Dare Becca hope that she can be the first to escape? And can Cassie shake off her cautiousness to save her sister?

Stylistically snappy, and snaking with shocking revelations, the final twist in this tale packs an entirely unpredictable punch. All in all, this is a compulsive must-read for fans of fiction fuelled by badass survivalism. ~ Joanne Owen

Joanne Owen

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