Rebelwing

Gr 7 Up–As a long, complicated partition war heats up, book smuggler Pru finds herself front and center. A sentient mechanical dragon has implanted on her and chosen her to be its pilot, with riveting dragon-flying sequences. The plot thickens as she and another student engage in some covert espionage work—attempting to use PDA as subterfuge only to succumb to genuine romantic tension. Meanwhile, a complicated political landscape proves difficult for readers to navigate, with Pru’s mother seeming at times too profane and hip to be believable as a political powerhouse. Although the book attempts to sell itself as dystopia, it reads like fantasy. The mech dragon and the genetic linear passage of mech control speak to fantasy or perhaps space opera. That being said, the writing is excellent, the characters well drawn and the mech-dragon offers a unique spin (sometimes literally). The bond between Pru and the other dragon copilot is palpable.