Riot Act / Sarah Lariviere / Book Review

RIOT ACT

Max Bowl is dead. He's pretty damn aware of that fact, too. It isn't exactly his choice to be hanging around the world of the living after the fact, but it wasn't his choice to die in the first place, either. He's got the new U.S. government to thank for that.

Stuck following his best friend around like an unseen shadow, Max can't help but want to warn her. There are more secrets at play than Gigi realizes, and nobody's safe. Max's death speaks to that. But no matter how hard he tries, Gigi can't hear Max's warnings--and she's got plans of her own.

Gigi's a theatre kid at heart. They all are (were), and they've gotten in trouble before for putting on now-banned plays--plays that push a little too hard at the new authoritarian government in place. But it's 1991, her best friend is dead, and Gigi is running out of things to lose. What's a little rebellion gonna cost her, right?

THOUGHTS

Sarah Lariviere paints such a harsh and cold dystopian vision that I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed. It's not the blood-and-gore dystopia usually seen in YA--or the kind soaked in romantic tension, either--but it's a stark vision of an American past that could have been--and that very much speaks to today.

PROS

Political Commentary	The best dystopias draw strong political parallels between their vision and what's happening in our world today, and this book really does take a (deservedly) harsh look at what a "libertarian" American way of life could become. The politicians here speak for the little man, supposedly, and they spout pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps philosophy that's more self-serving than self-aware. With egos out of check, money on the mind, and a little less sanity than anyone wants to admit, it feels very familiar--and therefore very scary.
Bleak Outlook	The world Sarah Lariviere creates is so incredibly bleak, and it's a refreshing move away from the high-melodrama dystopias of the last YA dystopian wave. There's just something so hopeless about narrating a dystopian book from the point-of-view of an already-dead teenager, just a ghost lingering in his friend's consciousness as she navigates this cold, new reality. The friendship Max and Gigi had is so vibrant in Lariviere's writing--and the grief left behind is so tangible it's both breathtaking and sobering.
Small Town Rep	Big city dystopias are dime-a-d0zen. This book lets somewhere else take the stage. Here you've got a bunch of theatre kids sticking it to the man (as much as they dare) under s restrictive regime, fully aware that their futures, even before this regime took those futures away, probably weren't all that bright. They're not New York or California rising stars, but they've got to believe meaningful art can happen anywhere--even Champaign County, Illinois.

CONS

I don't mind a slow build when the payoff is this tangible, but it must be noted that this isn't an action-driven dystopian resistance. This is a resistance led by kids who don't really have many options. They're fighting back how they can, but that resistance isn't bloody revolution on the brink of war in this case. It's a soft sort of dystopian narrative, an almost-hopeless one, and that slow building up to the climax might not be what everyone's looking for in their next dystopian read.	Slow Build
Because this book is more focused on the characters and their suffocating existence under the new American way of life, it takes a while for there to feel like a plot exists. I don't know that this book needs a very strict "plot" in that way anyway, because the characters are more than enough to carry the aimless sort of self-discovery happening here. But it's definitely not a typical, plot-driven YA read--so it might not live up to the expectations of some readers.	What Plot?
The one little thing that irked me about this book is that the 80s and 90s nostalgia sometimes trumped worldbuilding. I mean, sure, some things would be the same, but are you telling me we're still manufacturing Laffy Taffy in this bleak new world? A lot has changed in this new American chapter, and I don't know that all of the little references would actually persist in a world this utterly unlike the 1990s as they actually existed. In a disrupted world, surely manufacturing doesn't stay the same.	1990s Sustained

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
8/10

Those who adore M.L. Rio's If We Were Villains will love the melodrama of this Shakespeare-drenched dystopia. Those unsettled by George Orwell's 1984 will like diving into an alternate 1991.

Details Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers Date: July 16, 2024 Series: N/A Add to Goodreads Buy it HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.