Winter 2099 - Ever since the floods began, people have been climbing upward, resettling in the highest hills and mountains they can find. As the ocean slowly swallows every patch of earth, the people of Wing, a tiny island in the northern Atlantic, are losing hope. There are no safe spots left on the watery planet; even if there were, the islanders' rickety fishing boats can't handle the rough seas. It's only a matter of time before they drown, just like everyone else in the world.

Fifteen-year-old Mara knows the end is coming. If the people of Wing don't evacuate their homeland immediately, they face certain death. It's a prospect so bleak, Mara can't stand to face it. She escapes into an ancient cyber world, the ruins of what was once an interactive superhighway linking people around the globe. Now it's useful only for escaping the real world. Except that in the strange wasteland, Mara spies what looks like a great sky city. Not everything in cyberspace is based on fact, but could this futuristic place really exist? According to a mysterious avatar roaming the cyber ruins, it does. With no choice but to trust the stranger, Mara convinces the people of Wing to flee the island and make for the great city in the sky. It's their last and only hope. Provided it even exists.

When the people reach the sky city after a perilous journey on the sea, they're stunned to find a great walled city, firmly closed to refugees. As more and more survivors anchor themselves outside New Mungo, resources become scarcer and scarcer. If Mara can't find a way inside, she'll die with the rest. She's the reason her people came to the city - she's not about to let them die when salvation is so close at hand. But getting inside New Mungo isn't easy; it may even be impossible. Mara has to try. With the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, in her hands, she takes the plunge - literally - and enters a strange, new world where survival means something different to everyone. Can she navigate her way through this new land in time to save her people? Or will she become just another victim of the hungry ocean that is slowly consuming them all?

(Readalikes: sequels, Zenith and Aurora (available June 2011); also a bit like Floodland by Marcus Sedgwick, X-Isle by Steve Auguarde, Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi, and Dark Life by Kat Falls)

Grade: B

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG for scenes of peril

To the FTC, with love: Another library fine find

When the cars Nick and Allie are riding in collide one day, the force of the impact throws them both into the forest. Months later, they wake up to discover that not only are they dead, but they're not in heaven. Or in hell. Or really, anywhere at all. As Lief, a young, freckled boy living in the woods, explains, the pair have been flung into Everlost, a kind of middle world between life and death. Not even Lief, who has lived in Everlost for decades, knows why they are all there, what they're supposed to be doing, or how they might escape. All he wants are some friends, other kids to play his favorite games with him.

Allie, however, has no use for playing in the trees, even if the forest offers a safety not assured in other parts of Everlost. She wants to go back home to New Jersey. Convincing Nick and Lief to join her takes a little work, but eventually the trio takes off on an adventure-filled journey through the strange world of which they are now apart. When they reach New York City, they join another band of lost souls, a group led by an enigmatic leader who knows a lot more about the whys and wherefores of Everlost than she's letting on. To "get where they're going" (Leif's term for successfully crossing from life to death) they'll have to pry Everlost's secrets away from those who guard them most fiercely, face the land's most frightening figure, and learn to live their afterlives on their own terms.

For those of you who, like me, think there's too little originality in the world of children's literature, I have two words for you: Neal Shusterman. Everlost, the first book in his highly-acclaimed Skinjacker Trilogy, introduces a world so unique you really have to experience it for yourself. Try as I might, I can't do justice to the wondrous complexity of it. Just as fresh are the characters, who truly come to life as they battle each other to achieve their own purposes. From a religious standpoint (although this is not a religious book, not at all), I appreciated Shusterman's idea of "heaven" as a place of progression instead of stagnation. A vivid setting, engaging characters, subtle philosophy and really, just everything about it, makes this an excellent read that I highly recommend to anyone whose imagination needs a little workout. Mine certainly enjoyed the exercise.

(Readalikes: Although I haven't read them yet, the sequels, Everwild and Everfound [available May 2011]; Also, a little like Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin, The Everafter by Amy Huntley and If I Stay by Gayle Forman)

Grade: B+

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG for scenes of peril

To the FTC, with love: I bought Everlost with a portion of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger. Ha ha.