The Summer Prince

Starred review from January 14, 2013
Eighteen-year-old artist June Costa is a citizen of Palmares Três, a vertically structured city in what was once Brazil, with the rich at the top, the poor at the bottom, and a vital tradition of music and dance. Its centenarian queen keeps a tight rein on the tech—electronic and pharmaceutical—that allows for intensive state security and bodily modification. Privileged but rebellious June and her best friend Gil live on Tier Eight, and when they get involved with Enki, a beautiful bottom-tier resident who will serve a year as the summer king before his ritual sacrifice, her political art gains attention, and things get dangerous. In her YA debut, Johnson (the Spirit Binders series) depicts a future that’s recognizably Brazilian and human—June may have nanohooks, holo screens, and light implants, but 400 years on, teens still resent their parents and find ways to subvert the technology their elders theoretically control. With its complicated history, founding myth, and political structure, Palmares Três is compelling, as is the triple bond between June, Enki, and Gil as they challenge their world’s injustices. Ages 14–up. Agent: Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg Literary Management.

Starred review from February 1, 2013
An art project, a rebellion and a sacrifice make up this nuanced, original cyberpunk adventure. June, 17, remembers the last sacrifice of the Summer King, nine years before. In a future Brazil, after climate change, wars, natural disasters and plague have devastated the world, Palmares Tres is a peaceful and just city, technologically supported with holos, nanohooks and bots. Beneath the city's glittering facade, however, there's another reality. Youth is stifled while the governing Aunties keep Palmares Tres static in a class-stratified society centuries behind the rest of the developed world. June and best friend Gil, both relatively privileged artists, happily spend their spring dancing, creating public art and voting for the newest Summer King to be sacrificed for the city's prosperity after a year. When gorgeous, dark-skinned Enki is elected, both June and Gil fall for him--but it's Gil he takes as a lover, and June he takes as an artistic collaborator. Their love triangle, in a city with no gender-based limitations on romantic or sexual partnerships, is multifaceted, not the usual heroine-chooses-between-two-boys dynamic. As the trio dances--often literally--around one another, June must negotiate between the extremes of stasis and post-humanism, learn to see beyond herself, discover the meaning of integrity, and maybe even save her rotten-at-the-core and best-beloved city. Luminous. (Science fiction. 14-18)

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April 1, 2013

Gr 9 Up-Four hundred years earlier, the Y Plague nearly decimated the world's male population. Upon the ruins of Brazil, Queen Odete constructed the pyramid city of Palmares Tres. Here artist June Costa, 16, dreams of greatness, but instead finds herself tangled in an unusual and tragic love triangle involving her friend Gil and Enki, the rebellious Summer King who must die at year's end so the city and its complex matrilineal political system can continue to thrive. While Enki chooses Gil as his lover, he is impressed with June's daring, and they collaborate to create groundbreakingly memorable artwork. But as Enki's inevitable sacrifice draws near, the two flee Palmares Tres, a move that will shake the very foundation of their city's future. Rife with political turmoil and seeped in culture, this unique and highly fantastical dystopian romance is both intriguing and imaginative. Johnson excels at building rich and gorgeously complex worlds, and her prose shines with a sophistication that's uncommon in YA literature. This beautifully written novel will likely find a home with fans of Alison Croggon and Rachel Hartman.-Alissa J. Bach, Oxford Public Library, MI

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2013
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* After a nuclear winter, survivors in Brazil build the towering pyramid city of Palmares Tres, where every five years an elected king chooses a queen, lives for a year, and is then sacrificed. Privileged, rebellious young artist June Costa is mesmerized by this year's election, and she fiercely favors Enki, a beautiful boy from the bottom tier, the world of the algae vats and the perpetual stink. After his election, June and her best friend are drawn into Enki's world. With only a year to live, he is a brilliant and fast-burning star whose light opens June's eyes to the serious issuesand corruptionaffecting her city, and with her art, she helps to release a surge of discontent. In this YA debut, Johnson paints a brilliant picture of a seemingly lush paradise hiding a core rotted by class stratification, creative stagnation, and disenfranchisement. Evocative, disturbing, and exhilarating, this story leaves much for the reader to ponder, from the nuanced characters to fascinating central themes, including the impact of technology and the role of isolationism in a perilous world. Like leaping into cold water on a hot day, this original dystopian novel takes the breath away, refreshes, challenges, and leaves the reader shivering but yearning for another plunge.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2013
Four hundred years after nuclear war devastates the world, the Brazilian city of Palmares Trs thrives as an isolationist matriarchy. June, stepdaughter to one of the powerful political leaders known as Aunties, is determined to be an artist, and her daring, anonymous installations challenge the city's restrictions on technology, its corrupt infrastructure, its disregard for the young (technology has allowed lifespans to stretch multiple centuries), and its rigid class system. She finds an ally in Enki, the charismatic new summer king who will be an honored celebrity for a year, until he is sacrificed as part of a ritual to choose the incoming queen. In precise prose Johnson evokes an utterly foreign setting, complete with technologies that push at the limits of what it means to be human, and the relationships that delineate the social landscape are intriguingly unconventional and startling in their intensity. The story itself is thematically rich, encompassing the political nature of art in a time of vast upheaval, the potential of power to corrupt, the tension between tradition and innovation, and the toils and rewards of underground creative expression. While its complexity and disorientingly immersive sense of place may limit its appeal among teen readers, it stands as an imaginative and thoroughly realized addition to the sci-fi genre. claire e. gross

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2013
Four hundred years after nuclear war devastated the world, the Brazilian city of Palmares Trjs thrives as an isolationist matriarchy. In precise prose Johnson evokes an utterly foreign setting complete with technologies that push at the limits of what it means to be human. The relationships that delineate the social landscape are intriguingly unconventional and startling in their intensity.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)