Internment, the island in the sky, is a safe haven where there is no crime and the Sky God protects everyone from trouble. But when Daphne Leander is found dead, everything changes. People start questioning the King, the Sky God and all their controlling rules, laws and systems.
Sixteen-year-old Morgan and her friends are about to discover the truth about the secret Rebellion and the Ground.
I give this book four stars (out of five). It’s well written, with an interesting plot and engaging characters. It centers around a floating island called Internment, all the main characters live there and their world is very different from ours on the ground. The Island is relatively small and has limited resources, so people must wait in queues to be allowed to have children; whose gender and betrothed soulmate is already chosen long before they’re even allowed to get pregnant.
On Internment due to the lack of space children can only be born when someone has died, people live until they turn 75 and then they are dispatched by the King’s medical workers, cremated and returned to the Sky God. (This is just a summary of what life is like on Internment.)
Due to their system, there’s almost no crime at all. No rape, theft or violence most of the time. Their medical technology is very advanced, although most of their other technology is similar to things we have in real life but with different names. There’s pills or medications for everything and the King uses them to control the people.
There’s a train that goes all the way along the outside of the island, which is pretty small and it only takes about two hours to ride all the way around. On the other side of the tracks is a void along the edges of the island. The first rule everyone on Internment is taught is, Once you approach the edge, it’s already over. As well as more information about the “Sky God” and the stories from the history books on Internment.
That’s most of the things you need to know about the setting, the main character is a sixteen-year-old girl named Morgan. Her brother is a Jumper, someone who got too curious about the ground and approached the edge of the island. This leaves people physically and/or mentally disabled. He’s blind, so his betrothed Alice has to look after him.
Morgan, her betrothed Basil and her best friend Pen and her betrothed Thomas are normal people on Internment. Morgan’s dad is a patrolman member of the King’s special police force.
The main storyline starts when another young girl is found murdered on the train tracks, which is a big deal in a small city with hardly any crime. There aren’t even any prisons and this is the first murder in over 50 years. After Daphne Leander was found dead copies of her essay about the Sky God and existential thoughts questioning their entire existence and religion on Internment, considering it was made up by the Kings over the years and not based on facts. Her murder is blamed on her betrothed, Judas.
This story has so many things going on that there’s no good way for me to explain it all. But I have explained the world where it all takes place, summarized the main character and the premise of the plot. If you found this interesting then I definitely think you should go find a copy to read. In this review I’m going to move on to what I thought about the book.
The world building for Internment is incredible, it feels very realistic and all the characters were extremely well fleshed out. A detail about this book I really, really like is that before every chapter there is an excerpt from Daphne Leander’s essay. Even when we don’t know who she is, the words are meaningful and set up the plot. All the characters are really well written, developed and believable.
[Spoiler warning for the next paragraph, skip it to avoid them.]
I thought the ending was very good, bad and unbelievable. Morgan, Pen, Basil and Thomas along with a few other members of the Rebellion and the Princess of Internment make it to the ground and end up in a whole other world they know nothing about. If that isn’t a great set up for a sequel then I don’t know what is.
There’s five books in the Internment Chronicles series including this one, so I should probably learn to appreciate a cliffhanger ending now. I’m hooked on this story and definitely need to read the whole series to find out what happens next.
Overall I loved this book, I really enjoyed reading it and I can’t wait to keep reading and see the rest of Morgan’s story with Internment. I also really liked the title and how it seemed to be a bit contradictory because it fits very well with the themes within the story. This book is a little mature for younger readers, so be aware of that before reading.
As of right now I haven’t finished reading any more books in this series because I’m having some trouble finding available copies from my local libraries. But once I find them and have a chance to read and review them, they’ll be posted here.