Feedback (Variant)
If you haven’t read Variant (2011)—and you should—tread cautiously into these spoiler-infested waters. Having escaped from the prison-like Maxfield Academy with the injured Becky, Benson comes across a town in the wilderness populated by the human versions of the teenage robots back at the school. What’s more, these teens have a semi-psychic connection with their android counterparts, through which they can see, hear, and feel. One thing they can’t do, however, is run because of the chips implanted in their brains. So Benson plots for a way to get them out from under the nefarious (and still quite mysterious) hand of Maxfield. In many ways, this is a remake of Variant, with Benson trying to outwit the overlords and head for freedom. However, the claustrophobic tightness of the first book is replaced here by a loose series of threats that never solidify into something worth rooting against. Newcomers will be thoroughly lost, but those who rightfully loved Variant will still hold on to hope—because the final scene has one doozy of a revelation. Grades 8-11. --Daniel Kraus