The Haven
A Novel
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4.6 • 9 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
For the teens at The Haven, the outside world, just beyond the towering stone wall that surrounds the premises, is a dangerous unknown. It has always been this way, ever since the hospital was established in the year 2020. But The Haven is more than just a hospital; it is their home. It is all they know. Everything is strictly monitored: education, exercise, food, and rest. The rules must be followed to keep the children healthy, to help control the Disease that has cast them as Terminals, the Disease that claims limbs and lungs—and memories.
But Shiloh is different; she remembers everything. Gideon is different, too. He dreams of a cure, of rebellion against the status quo. What if everything they've been told is a lie? What if The Haven is not the safe place it claims to be? And what will happen if Shiloh starts asking dangerous questions?
Powerful and emotional, The Haven takes us inside a treacherous world in which nothing is as it seems. "Imagine Anna Quindlen or Sue Miller turning her attention to writing a young adult novel, and you have an idea of what Carol Lynch Williams has done for early teen readers." (Audrey Couloumbis, author of the Newbery Honor Book Getting Near to Baby)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Haven Hospital & Halls exists in one of the more sadistic dystopias offered in the recent explosion of this niche it's an enclosed facility whose inmates, called Terminals, are kept drugged and indoctrinated, occasionally taken out for surgical mutilation, allegedly to stem the progression of the deadly disease infecting them. Shiloh, the narrator, has already lost a lung, and others have lost arms and legs. A brew called the Tonic keeps them quiescent and forgetful as they await their next operations. But Shiloh has an unusually strong memory, and one of "the males," Gideon, has an unusually strong will. It takes half the book for these two to join forces, at which point the search for escape and answers begins. Therein lies the problem: the chemically lobotomized characters don't know what is happening to them or why and lack the gumption to drive much discovery. Thus, while Williams (Waiting) painstakingly details their horrific days and hints of Shiloh's awakening, the plot stagnates, and character development consists mostly of fear and confusion. Ages 13 up.
