Gem X

by Nicky Singer

Sixteen-year-old Maxo Strang, the most perfect human ever made, suddenly discovers a crack in his face, which leads him to expose his community's dark underworld of secret scientific research and the city's corrupt supreme leader.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0823421082
• ISBN13: 9780823421084
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Holiday House
• Length: 311 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

A Distopian World With Hope and Interesting Characters

I highly recommend this book. The story alternates from the viewpoint of a few different main characters, some more flawed than others, but most of whom are sympathetic in some meaningful way. A few things distinguish this book. The author's narrative has a distinctive style that flows, and parts of her narrative are poignant because of their simplicity and frankness. Yet in this distopian world, juxtaposed between the mindless, robotic-like rich elite and the abject underclass, the honesty and unexpected feelings experienced by many characters kept me guessing...and reading. A quick but thoughtful read, this book exemplifies the good in humanity even as it hints at the depths to which a society can essentially unmake its own humanity for the sake of science, perfection, and order. In a world without individualism or criticism, what remains? This is the story of one young who learns the value of these traits and more.