Variant (review)

Believing that his scholarship to Maxfield Academy admission would open new possibilities, Benson instead finds himself trapped in a place that seems part psychological experiment, part robot training grounds, and part boarding-school nightmare. Whatever this venue actually is, Benson soon realizes that he will have to pick a gang (there are three), escape with little help, and figure out who is human and who (out of the actual people) can be trusted. The idea of a school where isolated teens interact with realistically human robots under careful observation is a cool one, and it is logical that the new kid, who falls hard for a girl who turns out to be non-human, would shake up the careful routine established in the school. There are simply too many elements, however, that remain entirely unclear—why Benson would have been sent to the school, how paint-gun battles are telling the scientists anything important enough to justify their frequency, and what the end result of all of this is actually intended to be. In addition, the intense desire of most of the kids to keep things the same, even while their peers are literally dying all around them, inspires sympathy but strains credulity. Nevertheless, dystopia fans seeking a fast-paced, action-heavy read will find this generates a lot of excitement if not lingering thought.