Rash, by Pete Hautman
Just a friendly tip. When searching for the image of this book, make sure you put in Rash AND book!
I typed in rash and was horrified by a page of blistering weeping rashes. GAHHHH...
shudders...
I picked up this book in order to interview my friend Kelley, a fellow librarian, and record it. I am making podcasts, and she's a lot of fun so I hope it turns out well.
As usual I give reviews on this site so I am going to give you the skinny on the book, Rash.
ahem...
Do you ever think that we're going to carry our political correctiveness and concern for personal safety to such extremes that it becomes counter productive and even ridiculous?
Mandatory seatbelt laws, taxes on cigarettes, the growing concern and therefore pressure on obese people...the list goes on. Well, in Rash, that's the status quo of the USSA, almost a hundred years in the future and things, it seems, have gone downhill in the sense department.
All minors take mandatory anti aggression medication, they wear protective gear when taking PE or doing other dangerous things. SUV's are the norm because of their safety but only go as fast as a horse and no faster.
Speed yanno, kills.
A third of the adult population are incarcerated in work gangs for things such as road rage and aggressive acts like shouting and god forbid, hitting!
Football is banned, dogs are a thing of the past and if you offend someone, then you'd better be prepared to pay the price.
Enter Bono Marsten...
Bo is cut from a different cloth. Both his brother and his dad are incarcerated in work gangs for aggressive behavior, so he's already pegged as a 'bad seed'.
Within the first few chapters, we see that Bo's limp toast and utterly boring love interest is seeing his arch rival. Jealousy rears its ugly head, and it isn't long before Bo joins the work force and he ends up in the wilds of Canada in a work camp that turns out to be a pizza factory. The place is surrounded by fencing, miles and miles of snowy tundra and the polar bears.
Big hungry bears that make short work of any that try and escape.
Bo isn't on the pizza line for long before he's given the chance to try out for the prison football team. This means better food and fewer hours on the line. But it also means long hours of hard training, bruises and broken bones. The hyper-caution of back home seems like another world.
The warden is a throwback to an earlier aggressive time, and sadistic to boot. He'd been known to toss kids out of the gates to the bears, and in this remote corner of the word, no one back home would ever know what had happened. Or probably care.
With the help of a cyberprogram he'd created in school and a little extortion, Bo eventually is released...
But the warden has one last laugh. He opens the gate, and Bo is free
and utterly alone with the bears.
heh
A pretty good read.
Hey Webmasters! New Photo Album Service Launched - Check it out!
Sounds good - books featuring future dystopias are often hit or miss, and this one sounds better than some on the subject! 
Bravenet Blog 
Blog Community
Get a Free Blog
Manage your Blog
bravenet.com