Review by Booklist Review
Life in the year 2193 is easy for Zola. She doesn't have to worry about food or clothes because she has her Insta-Fridge and Insta-Closet that will get her what she needs at a moment's notice. Traveling can be done from the comfort of her home with her VR goggles. This is the existence that Zola has always known, but her life turns upside down when she discovers a note hidden in her Insta-Closet that tempts her to go looking for answers. Her search leads her to the name Jessie Keyser, and she is shocked to find out the connection between the two of them. The more she uncovers, the more she sees that her utopian world is not all that it seems. Almost 30 years later, Haddix has created an exhilarating follow-up to her popular Running Out of Time that is now centered around futuristic technological advancements. Longtime fans of the first book and newcomers alike will enjoy the thrills and twists here.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The daughter of a character from Running Out of Time (1995) discovers that she's a victim in a similar swindle. Setting her sequel a generation later but returning to the same family, villain, and even Midwestern locale, Haddix sends 12-year-old Zola Keyser--who thinks she's living with her mother, Hannah, in a utopian 2193 in which all social and environmental problems have been solved and a benign AI named Sirilexagoogle answers every need and question--on a shocking journey of discovery. She gets a handwritten (!) note on actual paper (!) pleading for help. As it turns out, Zola is not only wrong about the date by 170 years, but learns that she's an involuntary tester of experimental technology whose every (public) moment is being watched by crowds of invisible spectators. Worse yet, the Futureville attraction in which she lives is being kept up by the trapped, half-starved residents of a counterpart settlement, a nightmarish place supposedly devastated by unchecked war and climate change. Haddix's premise and plotline are strong on raw appeal, so fans of the original story who are primed to cheer for Zola will be more pleased than those dissatisfied by the author's hand-wavy approach to plausibility or fussy details. The main cast reads White; names and physical descriptions cue some diversity in the supporting cast. Entertaining fan service, mostly--with a lightly tweaked premise, cast, and course. (Fiction. 9-13) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
