The Rule of One (Rule of One Series #1)

by Ashley Saunders, Leslie Saunders

Overview

In their world, telling the truth has become the most dangerous crime of all.

In the near-future United States, a one-child policy is ruthlessly enforced. Everyone follows the Rule of One. But Ava Goodwin, daughter of the head of the Texas Family Planning Division, has a secret—one her mother died to keep and her father has helped to hide for her entire life.

She has an identical twin sister, Mira.

For eighteen years Ava and Mira have lived as one, trading places day after day, maintaining an interchangeable existence down to the most telling detail. But when their charade is exposed, their worst nightmare begins. Now they must leave behind the father they love and fight for their lives.

Branded as traitors, hunted as fugitives, and pushed to discover just how far they’ll go in order to stay alive, Ava and Mira rush headlong into a terrifying unknown.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781503953178
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	10/01/2018
Series:	Rule of One Series , #1
Pages:	270
Sales rank:	230,559
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	870L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Hailing from the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders are award-winning filmmakers and twin sisters who honed their love of storytelling at The University of Texas at Austin. While researching The Rule of One, they fell in love with America's national parks, traveling the path of Ava and Mira. The sisters can currently be found with their Boston terriers in sunny Los Angeles, exploring hiking trails and drinking entirely too much yerba mate. Visit them at www.thesaunderssisters.com or follow them on Instagram @saunderssisters.

Editorial Reviews

07/01/2018
Gr 7–10—A climate disaster has drastically altered the U.S. Many cities have been wiped out by severe floods, others by long droughts. Families are allowed only one child; to ensure compliance all children are microchipped at birth. Darren Goodwin, the head of the Texas Family Planning Division, refused to comply. Under his guidance, his twin daughters, Mira and Ava, have grown up living as one person. Only Ava is microchipped. A mishap with Mira during a visit from the governor arouses suspicion, and she and Ava are forced to run away to avoid arrest. The action heats up very quickly as the sisters struggle to make their way to safety. Life in this intensely classist future is satisfyingly framed, enhancing the narrative's believability. Characters are fleshed out well enough to support the story. VERDICT Dystopia fans will enjoy this adventure set in an all-too-plausible future America; a strong choice for YA collections.—Carla Riemer, Claremont Middle School, Oakland

School Library Journal

2018-06-24
In a dystopian United States where families are permitted only one child, twin teens Ava and Mira break the law simply by existing.The red-haired, green-eyed sisters function as one person in their hometown of Dallas, fooling the country's high-tech identification system by alternating who goes aboveground each day. When the tyrannical governor's grandson discovers their secret, the girls are forced to flee. Following their father's cryptic instructions over the course of a week, the sisters cross the treacherous desert in search of safety—and discover the seeds of a rebellion along the way. A dystopic future well-trod in many ways but inventive in others, Ava and Mira's world is an all-too-believable mix of advanced technology and environmental collapse. Only one substantial character's ethnicity is identified—Lucia, a Mexican immigrant who briefly crosses the twins' path. In their debut, Saunders and Saunders, themselves twins, lend an authentic voice to the girls' first-person narration, which flows nearly indistinguishably between alternating chapters. As they leave their old life behind, Ava and Mira grapple with existing as two separate people for the first time. Both tense and liberating, this shift in their identities only increases the stakes as the girls figure out their roles in the rising rebellion. Readers are in for a fast-paced ride, poised for a sequel, as the twins embrace their father's call, in the words of Walt Whitman, to "resist much, obey little." (Science fiction. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews

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