Candor: Picture Perfect (AKA Brainwashed)

Candor, written by Pam Bachorz, is a short, witty, creepy novel about a seemingly perfect community in Florida. In this town, everyone does as they are told, respects themselves and others, and strives for their very best. After the startling and heart-breaking death of his oldest son, Campbell Banks created this town. He, with his wife and younger son, bought an area of plantation in Florida and began to rewrite their lives. Finally relieving themselves of their son’s death, Campbell and his wife, Lucy, began to construct other houses for other families. Because of its ritzy houses and friendly, courteous members, the community began to flourish. Business were built, schools were developed, citizens worked harder than ever to do what was best. From the outside, the Community, named Candor by its founders, Campbell and Lucy, appeared to be the best place to live and especially the best place to raise a child. However, deep under the community’s good virtues and efficiency their loomed a dark, dangerous secret. 

One day, Lucy left the family. She escaped the town of Candor, only leaving a note behind that said, “Don’t come looking for me.” Devastated by his mom’s leaving, Oscar became prone to noticing things that were out of place. Right before his mother left, Oscar noticed she suddenly became uninterested in art, something that she had loved all her life. Oscar also noticed that he, himself, had also developed a distaste for art, too. And junk food and relaxing and breaking the rules. He also noticed that he had discovered a certain joy in cleaning the house and pleasing his father and making perfect scores on his SATs, no matter how many hours into the night he had to study. As more families began to move to Candor, Oscar noticed the change in other children and their parents, too. Determined to discover the meaning of the radical change, Oscar soon discovers it, hidden in all the music that plays throughout the streets and homes of Candor.

Fast-forward a few years later, Oscar has become a master at avoiding the messages that play in the music of Candor. After rifling through his father’s study, he discovers many documents and equipment that reveal to him that messages are entered into the music that is played all around Candor. These messages say things like, Don’t litter, Respect personal space, Lying is bad, and A nutritious breakfast is a key to success. You do not notice these messages, but instead they enter your brain and activate themselves in your subconscious. Oscar, after discovering the truth about the messages that lie in his favorite music, teaches himself how to block the messages sent out by his father and create new ones to keep himself on track. However, to avoid anyone from noticing, Oscar must continue to act the part of a “perfect child.” If he were to let his armor down and reveal to his father the truth, Oscar would be sent to the Listening Room, literally a room where you are forced to listen to messages, hidden in music, until you are “cured.” 

Deciding to take advantage of his knowledge, Oscar begins seeking out children of families new to Candor, hoping to find a new “client.” After successfully combating his father’s brainwashing techniques, Oscar seeks to tell other kids of the terrible actions being played. Calling them his clients, Oscar gives these new kids CDs with personal messages on them. However, these messages were good – they confirm that Candor’s messages force children to be perfect, and that Oscar’s way is right. But Oscar, who I believe is more like his dad than he realizes, doesn’t let these clients get their special music at no cost. Oscar makes them give him something that is outlawed in Candor, such as candy, alcohol, art supplies, photographs, et cetera. 

However, Oscar’s secret business is thrown into jeopardy when he builds connections with two risky clients: Sherman, his blabbermouth best friend, and Nia, a new bold girl who he develops a crush on. After many too-close-to-being-caught excursions, lying, and distrust, Oscar must make decisions on what is right and what is best. Coming to a quick, yet unpredictable end, Candor is a great book with a bad and surprising ending, but as one of my favorite, and most certainly quirky authors, Pseudonymous Bosch, would say:

“Only bad books have good endings. If a book is any good, its ending is always bad because you don’t want the book to end.”

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars 

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Uglies: Glamor or Freedom?

May, Favorite Author Month, is almost over, but that doesn’t mean The Bookshelf doesn’t have enough time for one more post honoring the best of authors! Authors are some of humanity’s finest specimens. Authors take thoughts, actions, dreams, and emotions and put them into a story. They write about what’s around them, what they have suffered, what they have conquered, and what’s ahead of them. Most significantly, authors write about what’s most important to them. A great book can be about any topic and any character because a great book is not determined by those two things. A great book is determined by how much an author is interested in a topic and how much thought and effort they put into that topic. Great authors are ones that put a great deal of research, emotion, and originality into their great books. Scott Westerfeld is one of these authors.

A published author for over ten years, Westerfeld has written for both adult and young adult audiences. Today, his books are mainly targeted towards young adults, but that doesn’t change how he writes his books. I have read seven books and two short stories by Scott Westerfeld, and all of them were about different, but engaging, topics. Scott Westerfeld imagines and creates alternate worlds for his novels, worlds that he has obviously used many years and many words to develop and evolve. 

The new US cover of Uglies

Uglies, first published back in 2005, is the first in a series about a futuristic world where, at the age of sixteen, everyone receives an operation to become a “Pretty.” The title makes this book out to be a seemingly shallow tale, but it’s not. Uglies is a breath-taking, and often horrifying, look at a future Earth. Uglies starts off with Tally Youngblood, the main character for the first three Uglies books, sneaking out of her ugly dorm at night to see her best friend, Peris, who recently became a Pretty. Tally, who’s slated to become a Pretty in five months, is anxious to have her operation and to start living the party-like life of a Pretty. To help make the wait less tortuous, Tally decides to visit Peris, hoping that he will help her become more patient and help her overcome any worries. Unfortunately, reaching Peris is not easy. He is at a party the night that Tally arrives, and Tally must crash the bash to reach him. After a series of disappointing events, including an odd encounter with a now pretty Peris, Tally must escape the party by pulling an alarm and jumping off the building. On her way back over the river to Uglyville, Tally runs into a person. At first, Tally hides, thinking the person is a government official – it’s illegal for an Ugly to be in New Pretty Town – but after closer examination, Tally discovers that the person is not only an official but another Ugly!

Fast forward a few months later, and Tally is getting prepared for her operation, which is only a few days away. The person she saw in New Pretty Town, Shay, is now her new best friend. Tally and Shay share the same birthday, and they are both scheduled to get the operation on the same day, their sixteenth birthday. However, Shay has other plans. Shay wants to escape town and run away into the wild to live with the Smoke – a group of Uglies that have never received the operation. Shay tries to get Tally to come along, but she won’t budge. Tally looks forward to becoming a Pretty; she, unlike Shay, wants to be like everyone else. Shay ends up running away, to the wild, leaving Tally to receive the operation by herself.

Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies

When her sixteenth birthday rolls around, instead of being taken to an operating room, Tally is taken to a government official place called Special Circumstances. Tally, confused and scared, is unsure of what is happening, until an evil doctor, Dr. Cable, comes along and explains it to her. Dr. Cable explains to Tally that Special Circumstances has known about the Smoke for a while, and, now that Shay has run away to them, they want Tally to find the Smoke. If Tally chooses not to find the Smoke and its members, she will forever be an Ugly. Tally, not wanting to be ugly forever, starts on an expedition into the wild. Along the way, Tally discovers much about herself and the area outside of her protective city. Eventually, Tally reaches the Smoke and is shocked at what she finds. When she first arrives, she wants to immediately set off her locator, given to her by Special Circumstances, but finds that she cannot do it. Tally learns of what it means to actually become a Pretty and that it does more than just changes your appearance. It alters your brain! Tally questions if the world that she is living in is any better than the world that occurred before hers, a world that was torn by overpopulation, disease, and war. Tally must make a rash decision between what she has wanted all her life and what she just recently discovered. 

Ultimately leading to a thrilling, cliff-hanger ending, Uglies is a phenomenal look into a world gone wrong. Often called the book that revived the dystopian genre, Uglies is in itself a debate about self-image, freedom, and willpower. Scott Westerfeld has received many accolades and positive reviews, from professionals and fans alike, for Uglies, which later spawned a series. Following Uglies is Pretties, Specials, and Extras. All four books incorporate both wonderful and horrific inventions and innovations of this futuristic world. Westerfeld plants multi-layered questions in the reader’s mind, questions that ultimately may not have a definite answer. His Uglies series, and other books that he has written, question modern society, the past, and the future and how things can be extremely different. 

Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

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Unwind: Taking Apart and Recreating

Continuing with The Bookshelf’s Favorite Author Month, I have decided to write a review of Unwind, one of my favorite books, by Neal Shusterman, one of my favorite authors. As mentioned in previous posts, it is officially Favorite Author Month on The Bookshelf, a time to praise the wonderful creators of books – authors.

Unwind, a thought-provoking and often disturbing book, was one of my favorite reads of last year. Unwind takes place in the future in an America that has been through not one, but two, civil wars. The second war was caused by the great debate of abortion, a current hot button issue. There were two sides to this fictional war: Pro-life and Pro-choice. Ultimately, neither side won, however, a compromise was made. In this futuristic America, abortion has been outlawed. Instead, of death before birth, a new method known as “unwinding” is used. If a parent is unsatisfied with their child, they may send them, between the ages of 13 and 17, to a camp to be “unwound”. Unwinding is the process of taking apart a human, literally unwinding them, and giving the parts of the human to those that need them. For example, a blind person could receive a pair of eyes from an unwound being, or an amputee could receive an arm. No part of the unwound person is put to waste. The leaders of America and the creators of the unwinding process believe that the unwound human continues to live on, just in many different forms in many different places. Unwinding is accepted and commonly practiced in this horrific picture of the U.S.

The events of Unwind take place many years after the establishment of unwinding. Switching point-of-views, Unwind follows the lives of three characters, Conner, Rita, and Lev, all slated to be unwound. Conner is a trouble-maker and a rebel. His parents are anxious to have him unwound; to rid themselves of an “imperfect” child. Rita has been an orphan, living as a ward of state, for quite some time. She has found solitude in her music, but her world is turn upside down when she is ordered to be unwound due to budget cuts. Lev has always known that he would one day be unwound. He comes from a big, religious family. Lev is the youngest child in his family, and he looks forward to being a tithe: giving his body up to be unwound. 

These three protagonists begin the book with three very different views about unwinding, correctness, and life itself. However, as the book progresses the three once very determined characters have their views altered as revelations are revealed. Eventually, the three of them meet and discover what it means to be unwound and what happens to parts of once living, breathing humans. They question if they will actually live on in another form and, if so, will it still be a life worth living. 

Neal Shusterman, an author of many different, astounding, and moving books, has written a superb and – Dare I say it twice in one month? – flawless novel. Just like his compelling and engaging characters, you, the reader, will find yourself questioning and pondering life in this world. A world that on the outside seems safe and even caring, but on the deep inside is throbbing with terror. Unwind is a raw look at an unimaginable, yet possible, world. 

Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

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