Discarded Faces by Steve Cross

Discarded Facesby Anonymous

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12/05/2002: "Discarded Faces" is set in the Empire of Danallo on Fifth Earth, a futuristic science-fictional dystopia resembling a cross between George Orwell?s Oceania and the bleak urban environment of the film "Blade Runner." This time around it?s the gays and Lesbians, not the ?thought criminals,? who are the designated enemies of the autocratic regime. So, if a story focusing on a 17-year-old Lesbian high school girl would offend you, look elsewhere for your reading pleasure. On the other hand, if you're up for an urban political thriller with an anti-homophobic theme, "Discarded Faces" is for you. Peb Corbo is a popular athlete at her school. Her secret lover is Zel Praftay, one of her teammates. She also dates a young man named Balk who attends a nearby college. She does this for cover, but she also genuinely likes him and is deeply ashamed of the way she's using him. Peb is bored by school and by her part-time job doing war work, and carries around a good deal of repressed rage about her absent father and her alcoholic mother. As the book begins, she's mainly concerned with finding the next party and getting drunk. Then she makes a new friend, a new girl in the building named Kanath. Soon she discovers that Kanath, Zel and Balk, in different ways, are involved in the underground resistance. Once Kanath is arrested at school, apparently for an offense having nothing to do with the revolution, the pages seemed to turn themselves. You won't want to miss this book's thrilling but also poignant conclusion.