Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
At elite Maplethorpe Academy, six students receive riddles and clues suggesting that all is not right with their society's universal rating system, which decides everything from education and healthcare to social standing. Each teen has a reason to challenge or distrust the system, but only by working together can they decipher the messages and discover the truth behind current events. After graffiti warns that "the ratings are not real," academically struggling jock Chase becomes close to overachieving Bex; professional e-gamer Javi is drawn to photographer Noah; and driven figure skater Hana befriends goth outcast Tamsin, whose rating is plummeting due to a bullying campaign. The six separate narratives don't intersect until near the end, at which point the teens join forces, leading up to an open-ended conclusion. Grey (the Girl at Midnight books) presents an intriguing premise, but the lack of detail behind the rating system creates uneven worldbuilding, and the story hits perhaps too many buttons, between Chase's dyslexia and alcoholic father, Hana's anorexia, Noah's sister's leukemia, Javi's confusion over his attraction to Noah, and Bex's domineering parents. Still, despite the somewhat cluttered narrative, this is a provocative dystopian offering. Ages 12--up. Agent: Catherine Drayton, InkWell Management. (Sept.)
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Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up--A dystopian society is structured around a social rating system that judges its citizenry based on daily behavior, leading to abuse and marginalization. Noah, Javi, Bex, Hana, Tamsin, and Chase all attend the same high school and join forces to solve the mystery behind a cryptic graffiti message discovered on the front of the school that said the ratings were not real. Leaning more toward character-building than traditional dystopian world-building, the characters grow as they navigate their diverse worlds of anorexia, parental alcoholism, socioeconomics, learning disabilities, and LGBTQ issues, making the book seem more realistic than dystopian. The ratings system is revealed over time. It segregates society's citizens by municipal and health services, neighborhoods, schools, and grocery stores. While readers will easily connect with the interpersonal struggles of the protagonists, many will question the vagueness of the world and how it came to be. Some might wonder how the peer-to-peer, teacher, and community ratings all seem to have the same weight. In addition, readers might also wonder who oversees the control factors, since ratings can be administered through individuals, large groups, and online. VERDICT Fans will not experience the same impact they got from the reading of traditional dystopias such as Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, Veronica Roth's Divergent, or Scott Westerfeld's Uglies. They will, however, question the path that present-day society is traveling down and speculate whether the story is reflective of their unavoidable future.--Sabrina Carnesi, Crittenden Middle School, Newport News, VA
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Six mismatched students fight against the societal rating system that rules every aspect of their lives.Grey (The Savage Dawn, 2017, etc.) provides a glimpse into the panoptic future of globalized and wearable technology where teachers, parents, and peers can influence someone's future by docking points from personal ratings. Access to food, hospitals, and education are all regulated by a person's rating. A motley crew of students at Maplethorpe Academy are urged into action when someone graffitis, "THE RATINGS ARE NOT REAL," onto the front door of their school. Bex, the overachieving dark-skinned brain; Javi, the ambiguously Latin and bronze-skinned gay beauty; jocks Chase (coded white) and Hana (Japanese)dealing with an alcoholic father and an unspecified eating disorder, respectively; Tamsin, the white tarot-reading, rating-defying rebel; and Noah, the photography enthusiast, bi-curious, white recluse are individually targeted as all six receive personal messages. Unsure of who is sending them, the sextet investigates, uniting to fight the tyranny of the school princess and destroy the oppressive rating system. Ever wondered what a dystopian John Hughes young adult novel would be like? Grey closely hits the mark in her departure from fantasy and incursion into science fiction: The novel unfortunately falls into predictability, and the dystopian world is riddled with teen character stereotypes.An unappealing plot peopled with two-dimensional characters. (Science fiction. 13-17) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
