Product Description

Consumption of alcohol: Illegal.

Football and other "violent" sports: Illegal.

Ownership of guns, chain saws, and/or large dogs: Illegal.

Body piercings, tattoos: Illegal.

It's late in the twenty-first century, and the United Safer States of America (USSA) has become a nation obsessed with safety. For Bo Marsten, a teenager who grew up in the USSA, it's all good. He knows the harsh laws were created to protect the people. But when Bo's temper flares out of control and he's sentenced to three years of manual labor, he's not so down with the law anymore.

Bo's forced to live and work in a factory in the Canadian tundra. The warden running the place is totally out of his mind, and cares little for his inmates' safety. Bo will have to decide what's worse: a society that locks people up for road rage, or a prison where the wrong move could make you polar bear food.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #265695 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-04
• Released on: 2007-12-04
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .76" h x 5.68" w x 8.22" l, .54 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up–In 2076 in the United Safer States of America, verbal abuse, obesity, and dangerous activities are against the law. Helmets and health food are de rigueur, and sports are either outlawed or radically changed (runners' track times have slowed appreciably because of the bulky safety equipment required). The penalty for breaking any of the rules is a lengthy prison term, and 24 percent of the population is incarcerated and responsible for doing much of the country's manual labor–without pay. For Bo Marsten, 16, the punishment for allegedly spreading a rash through school is a prison sentence, which is suspended, but he then goes to jail for lack of self-control after he hits a classmate. Bo has the opportunity to reduce his sentence when he's chosen for the prison's (illegal) football team, but the sadistic coach is determined that his players win at any cost. This odd pairing of satire and sports thriller is carried along by the protagonist's confident narrative voice. The angry teen is struggling to explore his options in a world that has little concern for his emotional well-being. The satire is obvious but astute, and Bo's development is convincing. The many threads that run through this book may overwhelm some readers, but there is much for them to ponder and the overall effect is fresh.–Sarah Couri, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Providing as many voices as there are characters, Andy Paris's skilled narration effortlessly leads the listener through this dystopic science fiction story. In 2076 in the United Safer States of America, having a temper is a serious problem. Bo Marsden is sentenced to three years in a prison work camp for having one fight too many. From the fights on the high school grounds to the illegal football games on the frozen tundra at the work camp, listeners will be glued to their seats to learn the next turn of events. All the while, Paris's smooth, vivid style keeps pace with the fast-paced action and dramatic story line. K.T.B. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Gr. 9-12. It's very likely that the world has never seen a sports novel quite like this one, which evokes Louis Sachar's Holes (1998), M. T. Anderson's Feed (2004), and Chris Lynch's explorations of male aggression in Inexcusable (2005), all the while avoiding the merest whisper of predictability. In the United Safer States of America of the late twenty-first century, a national obsession with safety has criminalized even minor "antisocial impulses." Bo's dad "was put away in '73 for roadrage"; the teen's own anger issues likewise land him in one of the country's privatized penal colonies. There, he makes pizzas for McDonald's until the camp's sadistic overseer recruits him to play football. The illegal sport is brutally violent but exhilarating--and Bo, a gifted athlete, slowly begins to question his culture's basic assumptions, identifying with crotchety Gramps' view that "the country went to hell the day we decided we'd rather be safe than free." At times, Hautman takes his signature eclecticism to an extreme, placing Bo in confrontations with polar bears, an intrusive artificial intelligence entity, and officials who suspect him of causing a rash outbreak. Like the author's similarly audacious Godless (2004), though, this will satisfy teens with an appetite for big questions and gleeful ambiguities, while ratcheting up the mind-trip factor with a gimlet-eyed extrapolation of the future. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved