From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up—Zen and Umasi, the teenaged adopted sons of the mayor of Education City, rebel against the rigid strictures of society and the educational system and join the outcasts on the streets. But they have very different values and goals. Zen is determined to destroy the school and the City and establish himself as leader of the Truancy, a company of teens who have been expelled, while his gentler, more humane brother wants to protect the common people of the City, even if it means destroying his own brother. Fukui's second novel reads like a futuristic
Lord of the Flies with gangs of boys running wild through an urban jungle battling one another and the Enforcers (for those of us who lived through the 1960s, the word "pigs" springs immediately to mind). Fukui's dramatic and compelling dystopian world will initially capture the imaginations of teens who are disenchanted with school and home and the limitations imposed upon them by adults. Unfortunately, the overwrought writing style, stock characters, underdeveloped plot, and nonstop mayhem are unlikely to hold their interest.—
Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This prequel to Truancy (2008) features 15-year-old twins Zen and Umasi, adopted sons of the notorious mayor of Education City, a dystopian metropolis where children are the product of cruel schooling. While Umasi is a model student and obedient son, when Zen discovers his father is responsible for the oppressive educational policy, he runs away to the abandoned districts to recruit homeless kids for his rebellion against city agents. Umasi quickly follows Zen, hoping to stop him from destroying the city, but the rebellion escalates into a war between the brothers. Both Umasi and Zen have inexplicable martial-arts training and talk like college professors, rather than teenagers. Despite its title, this book does little to explore how Education City came to exist or even why the brothers turn against each other. Instead, Fukui, who is a teen himself, focuses primarily on deftly depicted violence and explosive action sequences that will resonate most with reluctant male readers. Grades 8-11. --Kimberly Garnick
