Truancy

Truancy
Author: Isamu Fukui
Series: ---
Publisher: Tor Teen
How Received: publicist

In an alternate world, in a nameless totalitarian city, the autocratic Mayor rules the school system with an iron fist, with the help of his Educators...more In an alternate world, in a nameless totalitarian city, the autocratic Mayor rules the school system with an iron fist, with the help of his Educators. Fighting against the Mayor and his repressive Educators is a group of former students called the Truancy, whose goal is to take down the system by any means possible—at any cost.
Against this backdrop, fifteen-year-old Tack is just trying to survive. His days are filled with sadistic teachers, unrelenting schoolwork, and indifferent parents. Things start to look up when he meets Umasi, a mysterious boy who runs a lemonade stand in an uninhabited district.

Then someone close to Tack gets killed in the crossfire between the Educators and the Truants, and Tack swears vengeance. To achieve his purpose, he abandons his old life and joins the Truancy. There, he confronts Zyid, an enigmatic leader with his own plans for Tack. But Tack soon finds himself torn between his desire for vengeance and his growing sympathy for the Truants…

I loved the idea of the novel, and all in all it was really well written. Most of it was written from Tack's point of view, but occasionally Fukui would jump to the point of view of Edward, Zyid (the leader of the Truancy), the Mayor, or some other person's point of view. In order to understand everything that was going on, it was necessary, but got sort of annoying after a while. The plot line grabbed me, but the first half of the book kind of crawled along, and nothing interesting happened until the second half.

All in all, I enjoyed the novel, and I'd like to see what else Isamu Fukui can come up with, sequel-wise.

Overall Rating: 8/10 - the first half of the book was just too slow for me to get into.

Happy reading!

~Nicole