I’ll be honest, I went into this expecting a fun, trashy dystopian romp and came out the other side a bit rattled, in the best way. I’ve followed Juno Dawson for a while, loving her contributions to the Big Finish Torchwood series and the Whoniverse and I think this might be the one of the most confident things she’s written, it’s got that same gleeful pop-culture vibe of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, but points at something much darker.
The premise does a lot of heavy lifting and it earns it: Taryn Beck, trying to keep her brother alive, signs up for Starmaker, a talent show where the eliminated don’t just go home, they die. Think the “X Factor meets The Hunger Games”, it’s the description you’ve probably already seen doing the rounds, and yes, it is that, but it’s also not that simple. She builds a whole grubby, plausible ecosystem around it, it follows some of the path of its more obvious influences but also gives us a new mix of pop culture with sponsors, superfans, a “population” scheme that makes death a transaction, it all helps to create a world gone wrong, the kind of world that feels unnervingly close to the one we’re already living in, not some distant future.
The characters feel very well rounded and you ended up caring about the people around Taryn rather than just Taryn herself. Dawson’s always been good at ensemble casts, see the Coven novels, and this is no exception, there’s a real warmth to the friendships that forms in between the horror, which makes the elimination stakes land harder than I expected from a book this pacy. I got through this quickly and even after a satisfying conclusion wanted to see what happens next in this world. In fact if I’ve got one gripe, it’s that the ending moves fast enough that a couple of threads feel like they’re maybe being held open for a sequel rather than resolved on their own terms, but not sure what that would look like. Given how much I enjoyed the ride, I’d happily go back into this world with a good premise and I trust Dawson to supply one.
If you liked The Hunger Games or Dawson’s previous books but wished they had a bit more teeth (and a killer pop soundtrack running underneath), this is very much for you. Recommended.