Genre: Sci-Fi, Superhero, YA
Reviewer: Scott
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About The Book
Alé Aragón wasn’t supposed to come back. Once written off as powerless, he survived a horrific encounter that should have killed him—and returned changed. Now reclassified and thrust into the spotlight, Alé has become the face of a growing movement for Deficient rights in a world split between those who celebrate his survival and those who wish he had stayed dead.
When a brutal attack rocks Alé’s school, the prefecture responds by tightening its grip to restore order. Alé is recruited into a top-secret security program that he hopes will keep the people he loves safe.
But as Alé’s training intensifies, his peers begin losing their memories. Uncovering what’s happening could save his friends—and a boy with super strength he can’t stop thinking about—but it may also confirm a terrifying fear: that Alé poses far more danger to the world than anyone realizes.
The Review
Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t read book one in the series, this review contains several spoilers.
Finding out who (and what) you are is a very powerful thing.
FeralRising is the second book in the Deficient series by Michael Solís. In book one, Alejandro Aragón (Alé to his friends), the only Deficient in his elite school – a person without some kind of superpower – discovers that [spoiler alert] he actually does – the power to come back from the dead. Deficient is a well written coming-of-age YA sci-fi novel, putting the old fish-out-of-water idea on steroids as Alé tries to come to terms with the fact that he will never be accelerated like they are.
Yalamba, his oldest friend, has a Feral (unusual) ability – to draw things into existence. His new friend Kazuki is a Legion, meaning he has two abilities – mind reading as a Know It All and invisibility as an Unseen. His enemy-turned-friend Landon is an Atlkas with superhuman strength. And Gwen is another Legion with four abilities – Atlas, Racer, Sky Glider, and Mind Mover.
Book two picks up we book one left off, and did I mention steroids?
Where the first book was more thoughtful in its tone, book two maintains the intelligence and vulnerability of the first one through Alé’s character, but ramps up the pace and pressure as he friends stands up for the Deficient, and come under attack from unknown enemies.
Alé is assigned to a secretive student training unit called the Blue Stars, a spy-in-training program which separates him from his friends and put him in the line of fire. All the while, he’s trying to come to terms with his own newly discovered ability, and what it will mean for his future. He also has a growing sense of uneasiness, a disturbing unsubstantiated belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with him.
It’s heart wrenching watching Alé endure emotional (and in some cases physical) separation from his closest companions, the first friends he’s ever had beyond his first, Yalamba. As he goes through training exercises and classes to become an agent for the Prefecture, he starts to suspect that something is terribly wrong. But it’s also very satisfying watching him figure himself out.
Feral Risingmoves at a brisk pace. The first person present tense character voice makes the story feel real and intimate, as if Alé is speaking to the readier directly, and we are facing the dangers and dilemmas with him.
There are echoes here of Harry Potter (without the author’s transphobia) and of Ender’s Game (without the author’s homophobia). In fact, one of the things I found most refreshing about the story is how matter-of-fact Alejandro’s sexuality is. [another spoiler alert]. He finds himself falling for Landon, the boy who used to bully him before coming around and apologizing, but it’s a slow burn kind of thing, and their relationship moves in fits and starts.
I also loved how we finally got to see more of the world that Alé lives in, including some simulation excursions to places outside of the Prefecture.
Feral Rising has a lot to say about who we are as human beings, what we do with the power we’re given, and how important it is to stand up and fight for the things we believe in. It was such a refreshing read in these ambiguously moral times, and better yet, the author managed to shock me more than once.
Fair warning, there’s a bit of a cliffhanger at the end, although all of the action within the story gets settled satisfactorily.
A bold, fresh take on the YA dystopian genre, offering both an escape and hope in these troubled times.
Highly recommended.
The Reviewer
Scott is the founder of Queer Sci Fi, Liminal Fiction, and QueeRomance Ink, and a fantasy and sci fi writer in his own right, with more than 30 published short stories, novellas and novels to his credit, including two trilogies.
