Bookanistas: VARIANT by Robison Wells

Welcome to Bookanista Thursday, wherein a group of authors rant about books we loved, and you grumble and grudgingly add them to your list to be read and wonder if you'll ever get through it. Don't worry. I do the exact same thing. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER, PEOPLE. WE SHALL SURVIVE THE NEVER ENDING TO-READ LIST IF IT KILLS US. Like, death by paper cut or something.

Anyway. Today I'd like to talk about VARIANT by Robison Wells. It doesn't come out until October 1st, and normally I try not to talk about them so early, but I'm worried I'll forget all the awesome details if I wait that long. And honestly, it's worth pre-ordering NOW. It's that good.

The Goodreadable deets:
Benson Fisher thought a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life.

He was wrong.

Now he’s trapped in a school that’s surrounded by a razor-wire fence. A school where video cameras monitor his every move. Where there are no adults. Where the kids have split into groups in order to survive.

Where breaking the rules equals death.

But when Benson stumbles upon the school’s real secret, he realizes that playing by the rules could spell a fate worse than death, and that escape—his only real hope for survival—may be impossible.

So I have a geektastic admission to make. When I saw the cover, they had me at "Trust No One." I still own an old X-Files shirt too.

This is one of those books that's hard to talk about without spoiling it, so I'm going to try and keep this relatively short. THIS BOOK CREEPED ME OUT. It's so rare that I get really, honestly chilled by a book, but VARIANT got hold of me and held me tight. This is one heck of a claustrophobic book. Benson goes into Maxfield with a cautious feeling of hope--as a foster system kid he's been burnt many times before, and he has no one to turn to for help. But moment one at the school feels...off somehow. And the place just gets creepier. Nothing about how it's run makes sense, and did I mention that it's really CREEPY?

To make matters worse, there's some LORD OF THE FLIES flavored tension too, because not all the kids at Maxwell are nice. And some of them are downright murderous...

Dum dum DUUUUM.

I highly recommend VARIANT if you don't plan on doing anything for the rest of the day. Because you won't be able to put it down until the last page, and then after that you'll be online looking for info on the sequel.

While you're at it, don't forget to check out these great Bookanista reads. And there's also a chance to win a BTIB ARC here if you missed it!

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Gretchen McNeil is giddy about Moonglass

Sarah Frances Hardy brags about The Grandma Book