The Thousandth Floor by Katharine McGee takes place in New York City in 2118.  This twenty-second century story is set in a building know as the Tower, a huge skyscraper that reaches miles into the sky.  In fact it hold one thousand floors total.  Unlike the present, this building is quite different.  It is filled with people from different socio-economic background.  They may all live together in one building, but they are certainly separated by class.  The poorer inhabitants occupy the lower floors, while the wealthier live at the top of the world.  Technology plays a significant role in this time period. Many of the technologies are similar to what we are used to today in the twenty-first century. Texting is now calling flickering.  The wealthy do it in their mind using their contact lens while the poor must use tablets.  There are no cars that people drive, but rather hovers help the people move to different parts of this city-sized building. 

The book opens with a girl falling from the top of the thousand floor tower building to her certain death. Readers intuit that one of female POV will be the one who will die. The prologue cheekily plays with the readers suggesting that the person could have slipped, could have been pushed, could have jumped willingly. This helps propel the reader through the 400+ remaining pages the follow five different points-of-view:

• Avery Fuller lives on the thousandth floor.  Genetically engineered to be perfect, she harbors a horrible secret that can ruin her life.  
• Leda Cole also lives high up in the tower.  Her life isn't perfect.  She just returned from a summer of rehab.  Like Avery, she also harbors secrets.
• Eris Dodd-Radson was living a privileged life until a family secret destroyed it.  She used to live in the upper floors, but her secret has sent her and her mother down tower.  
• Rylin Myers is an orphan helping to raise her sister down on the lower floors.  Frequently behind on rent, she jumps at the opportunity to work uptower as a maid to get back on top of things, but this choice leads to a romance that could fall apart once a secret is revealed.
• Watt Bakradi is the only male point of view in the book.  As tech genius, he uses his computer Nadia to help him hack information to sell.  Like Rylin he lives on the lower floors, but when he is hired by by another character to be a spy, he is drawn into the world of the wealthy.  He deals in secrets and hold his own.  

The morally grey characters' interactions constantly force a reader to guess who the victim is throughout the narrative. The twists and turns mean the reader will often change his/her mind about who the victim will be. I think that there are many teens who will love this book for its soapy nature and morally grey characters. As in many soap operas, secrets don't stay secret long.  When secrets come out, the consequences are explosive.

In a nutshell this is a book about teenagers being horrible to one another in the name of social survival. The wicked rivalries, futuristic parties, eerily relatable technology, and mostly absent parents will delight teen readers.

NOTE:  I've seen other reviewers refer to this book as a futuristic Gossip Girls.  I've never seen the show, but I wanted to include it here in case it would motivate you to check out the book!  

Come to the library to check it out or put it on hold!  

--Mrs. Woodall, Teacher Librarian

My favorite Shakespeare tragedy is Macbeth.  I read it as a senior in high school.  I can still remember my senior year AP English teacher telling us about the themes that we would see in Macbeth: violence begets violence, appearances are deceiving, ambition can be very, very, very bad.  I am obviously simplifying here.  

I was super excited to hear that there was a new YA book out there that is a modern retelling of Macbeth.  Often movie makers and writers like to update Shakespeare.  Did you know that the movie Mean Girls is very similar to the play Julius Caesar!?  As I Descended by Robin Talley takes the story of Macbeth and transplants it to a modern boarding school in the South.  In Macbeth, the main character wanted to be king after his wife Lady Macbeth persuades him to act to grab it; in As I Descended, the main character Maria wants to go after the Kingsley Price, a prestigious scholarship after her girlfriend Lily persuades her.  Macbeth had witches; this novel has a Ouija board and ghosts. Both stories feature blood and the consequences of shedding that blood.  

Even though I knew the story of Macbeth, I was still on the edge of my seat as I tore through this novel.  I wanted to see how the story transpires in a new setting.  Overall, I found this book to be super spooky.  The role of spirits and ghosts and their effects on the characters was eery and spooky. This will be a great read for many teens.  If you like ghost stories, you have a good one here.  If you are looking for a book with diverse characters, this book is for you.  If you like books about boarding school (like I do!), this one doesn't disappoint.  

Come to library to check it out or put it on hold! 

​--Mrs. Woodall, Teacher Librarian