about Community 215
Defiance is not an option. In Community 215, forbidding walls keep the Residents contained and obedient to the absolute power of their carefully selected Council. Those within the walls are told where to work and live, who to wed, when to have children, and even how much to eat. The slightest hint of disobedience is punishable by being branded with one’s offense or worse, being declared Outcast, banished beyond the walls to almost certain death. This way of life is the only that Rhea has ever known. While she is an obedient child, she can’t help but glance at the seemingly impenetrable walls and wonder what lies on the other side.
From Chanticleer Books:
Rating: 4/5; Recommended!
Dr. M.K. Black’s Community 215 is a fast-paced, sci-fi/dystopian novel about a world that was torn apart, and the people struggling to survive it together.
Black gives us two teen protagonists, Rhea and Brooks, whom we grow to love. She creates a world both believable and terrifying. As our heroes collide with life inside and outside of the community, their world leaves readers wondering who the two can possibly trust.
Rhea once tried to climb the wall to get out of their community when she was a little girl. But her father, the leader of the community, caught her and has since that day drilled obedience to the rules into her head. However, she takes the risk of disobedience again at eleven years old, when she catches someone climbing the wall into the community. He begs for her help. She’s caught again and disciplined for trying to protect Brooks, a boy who seeks refuge from the Outcasts who live outside the wall.
Black masterfully develops Rhea’s community, and the people within it.
Though Rhea’s is only one such community of hundreds, Brooks is a reject of them all. Having lived outside of any community, he is considered a dangerous Outcast. He tries to convince Rhea that another world exists beyond the walls, a world where people are free and make their own decisions. But Rhea’s education, and the painful brand she received for saving Brooks, have taught her that only obedience and total honesty to her community will keep her alive.
Over several years, Brooks and Rhea grow close. The testing time is upon them, ready to determine the paths of their lives. Rhea hopes that, like her father, she will become the next leader. And, though she has never heard the word ‘love,’ she wants the tests to show that her mate will be Brooks.
Brooks, however, knew that it was love “at first sight” when he laid eyes on Rhea, as children. He could have opened the gates and let in the leader of his Outcast tribe of warriors right then, but he waited, taking the time to train Rhea in hand-to-hand combat, preparing her to survive the attack.
Brooks thinks only of Rhea and her well-being, and of their future together outside of the walls of the community.
Will Rhea believe him when he finally tells her that the communities are actually prisons to keep people docile at the mercy of the leaders? Their survival in this dangerous world is threatened by Rhea’s struggle to discover what is true. Whom should she believe, Brooks, or her father, the only leader she’s ever known?
Black’s enthralling plot will keep readers turning page after page. The ending of this story seems a bit abrupt, but Black could very well be setting us up for a follow-up book in what would be a dynamite series.
***
“Brooks tries to convince his beloved Rhea to turn against her dystopian home. In Community 215, she’ll have to decide who to trust, with her life on the line. Recommended!” – Chanticleer Reviews
About This Author
Defiance has not been easy. With a background in education and a PhD, I’ve been failed for my opinions, denied the right to speak the truth aloud, and even been offered private lessons by professors to help me to conform. I hope to highlight the beauty of freedom and freethinking through writing.
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