Restoring Harmony by Joelle Anthony
Sixteen-year-old Molly has lived her entire life on a sheltered island in Canada. Despite the Collapse ten years ago in 2031, her family has food, shelter and lives an agrarian, self-sufficient life. But now Molly must leave the island and venture into the United States to bring her grandparents home. The family doesn’t know if her grandmother is alive or dead, due to communication problems. To make it worse, Molly must sneak into the United States and only has enough money to get there, not to return. Molly must brave a country filled with poverty, starvation, no transportation, and ruled by the Organization. It is one farm girl and her fiddle against the world.
World building is very important in a book like this. One faulty line of logic and the entire book crumbles. Anthony has created a world that is carefully built on logic and a great extension of the direction the world is heading in. The loss of petroleum, the decay of large cities, and the reliance on trading and bartering make for a world that is alarming in its nearness and ambitious in its scope.
Molly is a glorious protagonist. She shines with intelligence, resourcefulness and kindness. Her reliable farmer’s knowledge serves her well in this dystopian novel. Molly is neither too brave nor too frightened. She faces danger with squared shoulders and does not seek it out. Many of the secondary characters are equally well drawn. Spill, the boy who is able to get anything because of his connections to the Mob, is multidimensional and a great romantic foil to Molly.
A dystopian fantasy that is hauntingly honest and offers a marvelous heroine, this book is appropriate for ages 13-16.
Reviewed from copy received from Putnam.
Also reviewed by:
Waking Brain Cells 
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