I've never read a Maria V. Snyder book before, so I picked up Inside Out based purely on its intriguing dystopian premise. I can't get enough dystopia, and Snyder's popularity led me to expect great things from this YA sci-fi offering. And boy, did it deliver.
Inside Out is the story of Trella, who is one of her world's scrubs. She exists to fulfil her function as a worker, and risks being 'recycled' if she stops being useful or starts posing a threat to the Pop Cops, who govern Inside with a regime of fear. She only has one friend, she doesn't plan to find a mate or have children, and she's hostile to the prophets who surface every now and then, speaking to the scrubs of 'Gateway' - a rumoured secret exit to whatever lies beyond. Trella's never believed in Gateway, but when an act of curiosity brings her under the Pop Cops' spotlight, she finds herself drawn into the search for this mythical doorway and becomes a symbol of scrub rebellion. In the process she also encounters Riley, a member of the Upper society that Trella credits with keeping scrubs down. Except... he's lovely, and the friendship that unfolds between them gives this sci-fi adventure a welcome gentle side. With snarking, of course.
For all Trella's efforts to escape the confines of Inside, it's a pretty fascinating place for a reader to visit. First, there's the lower levels, where the scrubs live. There you'll find barracks, a canteen serving spinach-flavoured slop, hydroponics, and care facilities where all scrub children are raised - ten kids to one Care Mother. The higher levels are inhabited by the uppers, who actually get their own quarters and a shot at family life. Then there's the huge network of ducts and pipes where few ever enter, except for those like Trella who work shifts cleaning them - ten hours off, ten hours off, for week after hundred-hour week. It's Trella's knowledge of this network that's earned her the nickname 'Queen of the Pipes', and that makes her the perfect candidate for the quest to find Gateway. She's also gutsy, smart, and a total trooper of a YA heroine. Or to put it another way, she rocks.
The fact is, Inside Out is everything you could want in a YA dystopian novel. Loner heroine with the hidden potential to lead a revolution? Check. Intriguing set-up with secrets galore to uncover? Got it. The makings of an addictively unlikely romance? Sure thing. Oppressed masses, imagination-pleasing gadgets, a truly evil female villain... It's all there. It's tense and exciting and compelling and at times it's even... cute. In fact, if I have any doubts about this one, it's that it's a little too spot on. I usually like my dystopians slightly on the out-of-the-ordinary side, and for me Inside Out reads more like it's written to formula. A really, really perfect formula. It even manages to deliver an ending that is simultaneously satisfying and cliffhanging, and that's no small achievement. So, I won't hold its perfection against it. I loved every minute, and I'm counting the weeks till the sequel, Outside In, hits bookstore shelves in 2011.
Inside Out is a book that'll whisk you off to its fascinating future world from the very first page, take you on a breathtaking dystopian adventure, and leave you clamouring for more. It's the kind of book that makes your imagination happy. I'd recommend it to YOU. Yes, you. Go on, read yourself some dystopian goodness.