Not Even Bones

Gr 9 Up—Sixteen-year-old Nita dissects bodies for a living—her mother captures and kills Unnaturals and sells their parts on the black market, and it is Nita's job to harvest the organs. But when her mother brings home a living boy, Nita has reached her breaking point. Helping the boy escape turns out to be her undoing, and Nita, who has been hiding her own abilities, is captured to be sold instead. Now she must survive with people trying to cut off her extremities, getting out the cage she's held in, and escaping from the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Readers who are tired of the same recycled story lines will find something original here. Despite how dark and graphic the book gets—scenes of dissection on living and dead characters occur multiple times throughout—the story is so compelling that readers have to keep going to find out how, or if Nita gets out of this mess. The narrative, while dark and gruesome, is one of survival and betrayal, and will make teens question their own thoughts on humanity and how far they would be willing to go to save themselves.