Otherborn by Anna Silver Series: Otherborn #1
Published by Sapphire Star Publishing on April 4, 2013
Genres: Dystopian, Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Goodreads
London and her teenage friends live in a reprocessed world.
Confined within Capital City’s concrete walls, London has done the impossible and the illegal. She’s created something New- a song. But her mentor, club owner Pauly, is not impressed. Since the historic Energy Crisis forced everyone behind walls generations ago, the Tycoons have ensured there is truly nothing new allowed under the sun. Pauly warns London to keep her song to herself, if she knows what’s good for her.
What he doesn’t know is that London is keeping an even bigger secret: she dreams. And she’s not alone. London’s band-mates and friends have begun dreaming as well, seeing themselves in “night pictures” as beings from another world. As Otherborn, they must piece together the story of their astral avatars, the Others, in order to save their world from a dreamless, hopeless future.
When Pauly is murdered and an Otherborn goes missing, London realizes someone is hunting them down. Escaping along the Outroads, they brave the deserted Houselands with only their dreams to guide them. Can they find their friend before the assassin finds them? Will being Otherborn save their lives, or destroy them?
Julie’s Review
Otherborn is a unique story. It definitely is not what I expected. The world building is subtle and slow, where we do not learn all the rules right away. The characters are complicated and their “Others” drive the story as much as their main selves, maybe even more so. The story is about loyalty, and finding each other no matter the cost, but it is also about betrayal and weakness as well as strength.
London lives in a world where nothing is new, in fact new is illegal. Everything is rationed out inside the city walls, and no one dreams. Well, London and her friends dream, and they only share their secret with a select trusted few. Then someone who knows their secret and a member of their group is murdered, and a friend disappears. They escape from the city walls to attempt to rescue their friend while hiding from whoever is after them. Along the way they learn so much about the world they thought they knew, and about themselves.
Their Others made a great sacrifice to be connected to London and her group. They know each other through their dreams and their Others help them in their search and in their escape. When they finally find their friend, things are not what they expect and a few devastating developments take place. They learn just how naïve they were living inside the city walls.
I thought it was pretty cool that the story takes place in a futuristic Houston, and the characters are running along “the Ten”. A lot of familiar areas get described here so that added to my enjoyment of the story.
