Flash Point (review)

Sometime in the future, the world economy has collapsed, and Amy's comfortable middle-class life with her sister and her scientist grandmother has crumbled along with it, so the three now live in a shabby apartment without enough money to pay for Gran's mounting medical bills as she dies of cancer. Amy therefore jumps at the chance for a job at a TV station, determined to get the hefty salary and full medical benefits. The job proves to be a role on a reality show where she and five other teens are placed in horrific and sometimes dangerous scenarios to test their reactions; viewers then bet on their responses, and those who accurately predict the players' actions win large sums of money. As the show gains popularity, political and social tensions erupt, and violent social reality becomes almost indistinguishable from the increasingly amped-up scenarios Amy and the others have to contend with. Meanwhile, Amy's jealous little sister attempts to insert herself into Amy's fame, and Gran's health deteriorates. The fantasy of a dangerous reality show will attract readers who found similar satisfaction in The Hunger Games; while Amy has nowhere near Katniss' skill or courage, she manages to be more believable as she decides whom she can trust and where her loyalties lie. Her very ordinariness is what makes her a compelling character, who is simply trying to do the right thing in a wrong world. Readers who have had to adjust their own lifestyles due to the recession, as well as those who enjoy dystopian fiction set in a possible near future—where the monsters are still human and the dangers have to do mostly with compromising your ethics in order to survive—will find this absorbing and thought-provoking.