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The Forsaken (novel)

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Author
  
Lisa M. Stasse

3.7/5
Goodreads

Originally published
  
2012

The Forsaken (novel) t2gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcS5kVdKqiIdJg9tek

Similar
  
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The Forsaken is the first novel of a trilogy written by Lisa M Stasse which was published on 10 July 2012 by Simon & Schuster. It is centered on and narrated by sixteen-year-old Alenna Shawcross, an orphan from UNA (United Northern Alliance) which is a merger of Canada, the United States and Mexico after a global economic meltdown. The novel, which is set in the present tense, follows Alenna as she learns to survive on Prison Island Alpha - an island where the government sends teenagers who fail the GPPT (Government Personality Profile Test).

Contents

Plot

As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico, the U.S., and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet — having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to The Wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.

The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway ...

Characters

Alenna Shawcross - the sixteen-year-old protagonist and narrator. She is described as having brown hair and blue eyes.

Liam - a mysterious boy who is the village's best fighter and scouter. Alenna feels connected to him some how.

Gadya - Alenna's friend and a fighter for the village, Gadya had been on the "wheel" for fourteen months and used to be in a relationship with Liam.

Matthieu Veidman - the leader of the village. Veidman has been on the "wheel" for three and a half years. He is in a relationship with Meira.

Meira - often mistaken as Veidman's sister/twin, Meira is a beautiful girl and Veidman's girlfriend.

David Aberly - a boy who helps Alenna at the start of the book but is captured by the Monk.

The Monk - the leader of four out of six sectors of the "wheel", not much is known about the Monk, except for the fact that he has been on the "wheel" much longer than any of the others.

Rika - the head chef of the village, friend of Gadya and Alenna.

The drones - Monks warriors.

The Test

The Government Personality Profile Test (often shorterned to GPPT in the novel) is the test that all sixteen-year-olds in the UNA are forced to take. It was created by Minister Harka as a way to detect future criminals before they have a chance to cause trouble. Anyone who fails is branded an "Unanchored Soul" and sent to Prison Island Alpha where they can't harm anyone but each other and the life expectancy is a mere eighteen years. There are no questions, all that happens is a serum gets injected into the person's veins and the computer does the rest.

The Island

All teenagers who fail the GPPT (see above) are sent to Prison Island Alpha, nicknamed the wheel by the people who live there, and the Land Across the Water or the Forgotten Place by people on the mainland. It is called the Wheel because it is split into six sectors; the Monk's territory - orange, purple, yellow and red - the villagers' territory which is the blue sector, and finally the grey zone where bad things happen. It is described as being lush and forest like.

References

The Forsaken (novel) Wikipedia