ACCESS DIGITIZED EDITION
Guide/Reviews Database
OLDER FICTION
Giles, Lamar

The Getaway

400 pp. | Scholastic | September, 2022 | Trade ISBN 978-1-338-75201-4 $19.99
(2) YA Jay has lived for three years in Karloff Country, a Disney World–like resort in Virginia whose guests include the world's super-wealthy. It's billed as "The Funnest Place Around," and it is, since outside the walls in this near-future world the planet is devastated by poverty, hunger, wildfires, droughts, riots, and violence. The narration alternates among Jay and his friends Zeke and Connie, also Black and also Helpers at the amusement park; and Seychelle Karloff, biracial heiress to a multi-billion-dollar fortune. After an apocalyptic series of events, the friends come to realize that Karloff Country has been deliberately positioned as a refuge for the "prophets of finance and politics who saw society's collapse coming" and a "doomsday prison" for the Helpers, and they put themselves at risk by joining a rebellion. Giles skillfully places the four friends in the midst of a brutal upheaval with strong racial overtones, as Karloff Country, so meticulously perfect at the beginning of the novel, is dismantled and the world inside the walls begins to look like the devastated world outside. With elements of adventure, science fiction, horror, and even a bit of romance in a broken world, Giles keeps readers wondering who can and cannot be trusted throughout this page-turning novel.
Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2022

RELATED 

OLDER FICTION

What Beauty There Is
by Anderson, Cory
OLDER FICTION

Between Perfect and Real
by Stoeve, Ray
OLDER FICTION

Zoe Rosenthal Is Not Lawful Good
by Werlin, Nancy
OLDER FICTION

Home Is Not a Country
by Elhillo, Safia
OLDER FICTION

All Our Hidden Gifts
by O'Donoghue, Caroline
More

Get connected. Join our global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?