Contaminated

Velvet may have a softer name than her literary predecessors Katniss (The Hunger Games, rev. 9/08), Cassie (The 5th Wave, rev. 5/13), and Kaelyn (The Way We Fall, rev. 3/12), but like them she has been forced to take on adult-sized responsibilities within her repressive society. As the book opens, Velvet seeks her mother in the terrible "kennel" where the Contaminated are kept. "Connies" are people who had the misfortune to drink ThinPro, a protein-rich diet drink contaminated with something akin to mad cow disease, rendering them violent and unpredictable. Velvet successfully locates and claims her mother, who is now docile but must wear a collar that shocks her at the slightest hint of agitation. But in addition to taking care of her mother and younger sister, Opal, she must fend off angry neighbors who don't want to live near a Connie. The plot moves quickly, with moments of horror (such as the discovery of a severed foot in a dryer), and Velvet is forced into fighting more than once. She's believably tough in defense of herself and her family, but this is more of a relationship-based book than many other teen dystopian novels. Velvet must care for her mother both physically and mentally, and young readers may discover parallels to dealing with a mentally ill parent or with someone suffering from Alzheimer's. There's some romance, too, with the son of the kennel owner, but by the end of the story, it looks like worse things are yet to come. susan dove lempke