Anthem Fleet has it all. She lives in a penthouse overlooking the city of Bedlam where her father is a premier real estate investor. She is on the prestigious ballet corps as one of the prima ballerinas, and she goes to Cathedral Day School, a private school for the wealthy. Her boyfriend, Will, is the best-looking guy in school and Zahra, her best friend, absolutely despises him. And whereever she needs to go, Serge will take her there in her family's private car, a beautiful and expensive Seraph. But one event will change her life and make her see the city she loves a completely different way.
Anthem has always colored between the lines but one night she and Zahra go to the Southside to party. Never having been there before, Anthem is filled with anxiety until she meets Gavin. He's beautiful,attentive protective. Anthem loves the way he treats her as a normal person, like casually going by school to pick her up on his motorcycle to take her to secluded and beautiful spots on an otherwise ugly Southside. They are in love...then Alicia Roach comes calling.
In an instant, Gavin is abducted and Anthem has a few days to come up with a ransom for his release or he dies. She's desperate and devastated and while crossing the Bridge of Sighs, she get thrown into the bubbly chemical-ridden river and dies...only to wake up in a makeshift hospital with stitches running down her chest...
With days lost and a chimeric mechanical heart keeping her alive, Anthem has to beat the clock to save Gavin from the Syndic8 before it's too late. Or is it already? The city has gotten derelict and dangerous since The Hope disappeared. No one knows why he did, but they're ready for a hero comeback..someone to take the city to expose the darkness and bring it to light. But who will it be and how is Anthem, a beautiful rich girl from the city, involved in all of it?
Kahaney writes a beautifully descriptive steampunk novel that will draw the reader in with imagery, the societies within Bedlam and the dark underbelly of crime. With street names like Hemlock, Catechism and Oleander and places like Morass Bluffs, Fleet Tower and Hades, the reader will feel like a comic book went rogue and became a novel based on the grandiose world, characters and plots Kahaney weaves. The citizens of Bedlam can read everything going on through the Daily Dilemma or feed their addiction with drugs like Dreamazine, rollies, and Zenithin. It doesn't matter which side of the Bridge to Nowhere you live, most lives are the same - duplicitous, carefully covered over and never what they seem.
Best of all? JUST picked up the sequel this past weekend! Highly recommended for upper junior high and high school.
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