Blurb: In a future London, Concentr8 is a prescription drug intended to help kids with ADD. Soon every troubled teen is on it. It makes sense, doesn't it? Keep the undesirable elements in line. Keep people like us safe from people like them. What's good for society is good for everyone. Troy, Femi, Lee, Karen and Blaze have been taking Concentr8 as long as they can remember. They're not exactly a gang, but Blaze is their leader, and Troy has always been his quiet, watchful sidekick - the only one Blaze really trusts. They're not looking for trouble, but one hot summer day, when riots break out across the city, they find it. What makes five kids pick a man seemingly at random - a nobody, he works in the housing department, doesn't even have a good phone - hold a knife to his side, take him to a warehouse and chain him to a radiator? They've got a hostage, but don't really know what they want, or why they've done it. And across the course of five tense days, with a journalist, a floppy-haired mayor, a police negotiator, and the sinister face of the pharmaceutical industry, they - and we - begin to understand why. This is a book about what how we label children. It's about how kids get lost and failed by the system. It's about how politicians manipulate them.
My rating: 4 stars
Genre: YA
My thoughts: A very thought provoking YA book. A population of youths drugged to keep them out of trouble to control a social epidemic of violence and trouble, all with their parents blessing as after all they are being paid to make sure their kids take the drugs. The withdrawal of funding from the drug leads to rioting and worse, the kids in the story get muddled up in a world they don't yet understand.
A must read.
Read: 4-18th September 2015
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