One Page at a Time
I was recommended this book by a family member who was raving about it. I didn’t really know what to expect except that it was sort of a futuristic Gossip Girl. Now, having read the Gossip Girl series all throughout middle and high school and of course watching the T.V. show, I wasn’t really sure anything was going to compare. Boy was I wrong. This book was fantastic! I’m so glad I read it and am excited to see what happens in the sequel (which is already out).
This book is set about 100 years in the future in New York City and follows a number of different characters: Leda, Avery, Watt, Rylin, and Eris. Leda is a recovering addict and is in love with a boy who seems out of her reach. Eris has her whole world fall apart but is able to find love. Rylin is a working class high school dropout who is supporting herself and her sister. Watt (the only male character perspective we get to
experience) is a tech genius with a huge secret that could get him arrested. And Avery is genetically designed to be perfect but is tormented by the one thing she can’t have.
This book is full of different plot twists, hidden agendas, and characters you really want to root for. The opening chapter begins with a description of a girl falling to her death, leaving us to spend the whole novel wondering and questioning who it would be and why she fell from this large skyscraper. What a way to start a book! We do eventually find out but not until the second-to-last chapter. Here are my takeaways, and while I won’t give any major spoilers, there are a few minor spoilers which I’ll warn you about
1. The author gives such fantastic descriptive detail, the high-tech devices of the future are easy to imagine. Each new element described, each new characteristic or trait, is given vivid imagery. I enjoyed picturing this new futuristic world with its intriguing characters in my mind.
2. Katharine McGee does a great job of world building! Considering how far into the future this is and all the new high tech gadgets the characters are using, the reader doesn’t feel left in 2016. These characters are literally eating gummy bears that have been modified to scream when they eat them, or floating alcoholic bubbles that they drink with a straw, and their phones are pretty much connected to their bodies. The whole tower that they live in and all the technological advances are definitely well thought out.
The Thousandth Floor- Katharine McGee, 2016
Katie Kendrick