The Forsaken (The Forsaken #1)
Author: Lisa M. Stasse
Desc: As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico the U.S. and Canada) Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet—having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence and so she is sent to The Wheel an island where all would-be criminals end up. The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years but with dirty violent and chaotic conditions the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway.