The Rebel's Code

Fans of John Green, The Handmaid's Tale and 1984 will love this dark but clever dystopian thriller with a romantic twist.

Meet fifteen-year-old Vela Anderson, whose motto is laugh or you’ll go crazy, borrowed from her missing father who unfortunately seems to have done the latter. Not that Vela gets to laugh much: between her hyper-vigilant mother and the egomaniac president that rose to power during two wars that wiped out much of the world, Vela’s learned to be careful about what she says, and more importantly, who she trusts.

Unfortunately the one thing the wars left untouched was high school, which Vela’s just started, enduring the endless memorization and classroom politicking that are necessary to keep the stars on her armband, which will used to sort students on graduation.

However Vela’s world is about to change forever when a relative she’s never met is mysteriously pardoned and sent to live with her family. As his behavior grows more and more erratic Vela begins to piece together clues that suggest everything she’s learned about her family and country might be a wrong. But it isn’t she meets a boy in her grade with a dark family secret of his own that she discovers the truth about the world she lives in and takes her first step towards unlocking the rebel’s code.