2014 Hub Reading Challenge discussion

Many people seem to have written about the fast pace at the beginning of this book, and how they couldn't put it down at first. For me, it was the opposite- Even though the pace was fast, I had a hard time getting into the story until maybe chapter 4...then, I couldn't put it down. I even brought it with me to a birthday party at the bowling alley, reading in between turns! This book was intense, and left me feeling paranoid, seeing conspiracy theories all over (like any good suspense dystopian novel should do).

As someone fascinated with language, persuasion, propaganda, thought control and privacy issues, this book hooked me in. Set in present day times, there is little need for the author to invent too much to support his premise. We are in the age of social media, street cameras, and heightened national security. The information being gathered about each of us daily is substantial, from the Facebook quizzes we willingly take to find out which state we really belong in or which Disney Princess we are most like, to the information gathered about us through more subtle sources, cookies on our computers and organizations sharing our information. This book reminded me of a cross between Divergent and 1984. Big Brother gathering tons of data on a huge social experiment.

Words are power and cause definite neuro-chemical changes in the brain. Different words and persuasion techniques work better on different personality types. With a series of simple questions, "Poets" , a secret group of people specially trained in persuasion and thought control techniques are able to figure out which of the 228 personality types a person is "segmented" into, and use the techniques or words that best work on that kind of person. Max Berry likens this to ancient day sorcery.

Emily Ruff is a 16 year old runaway, daughter of a verbally abusive mother, living on the streets, hustling people out of their dollars with a slight of hand card trick. She is invited take examinations to gain entry into a school training "poets." Wil Parke is kidnapped and interrogated in an airport bathroom. An innocent man, he doesn't understand why he is running for his life. Through a series of jumps, forward and back in time, their stories weave together.

Teacher recommendations-
I'd suggest this more for high school level students due to a little bit of mature content and a lot of profanity (but if Ender's Game was ok for your middle schoolers, this one would be fine.) Lots of F-bombs. You might use some personality tests like True Colors or even Myers-Briggs as an activating activity. Lessons on Propaganda, biased media reporting, and/or dialect and sociolinguistics.

I was ready to give this one 4 stars but then it started to get a little convoluted at the end. I'm not sure if the book is to blame or if I just spaced out my reading too much and lost the thread. Overall, I found this novel to be very original and extremely engaging, a thriller for people who are interested in language and persuasion.

I agree, overall I liked the book, but it wasn't quite as well-crafted at the end. It almost seemed to go on a little too long. But it was great as a really intriguing page turner, with some gripping moments that I could tear myself away from! And the fact that it had that smart linguistic edge made it way better than your average thriller.