Delta Oblivion

Gr 7 Up–In the near future, mech battles—brutal fights between giant robots—make up one of the most popular sports in the world. Sixteen-year-old Tallie has been training to become a mechbot pilot at the famous Guardian Omega facility. Pilots work in pairs and must undergo a mind sync, a process that exposes all their memories and feelings to each other. Though Tallie has been hoping to pair with childhood friend Diego, she instead is placed with Zaina, a mysterious newcomer with a checkered past who keeps blocking her memories from Tal, sabotaging their training. One of the most poignant elements of the story is Tallie’s exploration of her neurodivergence. She was diagnosed with autism at age 13 and hyperfixates on mech battles, the one area where she doesn’t feel like an outsider. Her parents don’t understand, and it’s this which allows her ultimately to connect with Zaina, who lost her only family in an auto wreck and is about to age out of both the training program and foster care if she can’t succeed. While they are very different from other, they both need this. The technology is sophisticated and complex, but Walker never allows it to intrude on the human narrative. There is some romance between Diego and copilot Danielle, who are dating, but the story is solidly middle school–appropriate and written at a mid-fourth-grade level. Tallie is cued as white.