The Subjects
Daniel is a sixteen-year-old drug dealer and he is going to jail.
Then he’s not.
A courtroom intervention. A long car ride to a deluxe outback facility. Other ‘gifted delinquents’.
Where are they?
It’s not a jail.
It’s not a psych unit.
It’s not like any school he’s ever seen.
He is sure he and the others are part of an experiment. But he doesn’t know who’s running it or what they are trying to prove. And he has no idea what the next seven months are going to do to him.
An interesting book and an interesting perspective. Science fiction this is not. It is Social Engineering, and I have no doubt somewhere in the world things like this are going on.
To avoid Juvenile detention Daniel is sent to a “school”, but it is quite unlike any other school. For a start his room has an ensuite. He can also specify in his contract with the school what he wants, I presume there would have been limitations on this, but he chose extra food and a fridge.
The lessons are different to normal school lessons and it quickly becomes apparent that Daniel and the rest of the students are all very intelligent. This intelligence has led them down the wrong paths, in Daniel's case dealing pills to his fellow students in school. Pills that were initially prescribed to control his behaviour.
At times this book is very laboured. It is told from Daniel's POV and occasionally moves to a point 30 years hence.
I felt the ending a bit rushed and not quite right somehow.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for my ARC in return for an honest review.