Truancy Origins: A Novel

by Isamu Fukui

Overview

Fifteen years ago, the Mayor of the Education City was presented with an unwelcome surprise by his superiors: twin six-month-old boys. As the Mayor reluctantly accepted the two babies, he had no way of knowing that they would change the city forever….

Raised in the comfort of the Mayoral mansion, Umasi and Zen are as different as two brothers can be. Umasi is a good student; Zen an indifferent one. They love their adoptive father, but in a city where education is absolute, even he cannot keep them sheltered from the harsh realities of the school system. When they discover that their father is responsible for their suffering, affection turns to bitterness. Umasi and Zen are thrust onto two diverging paths. One will try to destroy the City. The other will try to stop him.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765322647
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/2011
Series:	Truancy , #2
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.30(d)
Lexile:	960L (what's this?)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

ISAMU FUKUI is a student at New York University. His first novel, Truancy, was published to rave reviews and garnered significant publicity, including three interviews on National Public Radio and features in The New York Daily News and Esquire.com. He continues to be in demand as a speaker at universities and high schools across the country.

Editorial Reviews

Fukui, who is a teen himself, focuses primarily on deftly depicted violence and explosive action sequences that will resonate most with reluctant male readers.” —Booklist

“Action-packed from beginning to end, the Truancy series could potentially be to teenage boys what Twilight is to teenage girls—an excellent trilogy to be shared with friends.” —Myshelf.com

From the Publisher

Gr 8 Up—Zen and Umasi, the teenaged adopted sons of the mayor of Education City, rebel against the rigid strictures of society and the educational system and join the outcasts on the streets. But they have very different values and goals. Zen is determined to destroy the school and the City and establish himself as leader of the Truancy, a company of teens who have been expelled, while his gentler, more humane brother wants to protect the common people of the City, even if it means destroying his own brother. Fukui's second novel reads like a futuristic Lord of the Flies with gangs of boys running wild through an urban jungle battling one another and the Enforcers (for those of us who lived through the 1960s, the word "pigs" springs immediately to mind). Fukui's dramatic and compelling dystopian world will initially capture the imaginations of teens who are disenchanted with school and home and the limitations imposed upon them by adults. Unfortunately, the overwrought writing style, stock characters, underdeveloped plot, and nonstop mayhem are unlikely to hold their interest.—Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK

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