Skip to main content
Pills and Starships

Pills and Starships

Current price: $22.95
Publication Date: June 10th, 2014
Publisher:
Black Sheep
ISBN:
9781617752759
Pages:
256

Description

Millet’s first YA novel explores a world devastated by global warming, and two teenagers determined to survive against all odds.

—Winner of the 2015 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People

—Named a 2015 Green Earth Honor Book by the Nature Generation

—Named a Best Book of 2014 by Teaching for Change

“A deep read, but fast; it lingers in your mind long after it’s been read.” —New York Journal of Books

“I’m the first to admit that dystopia isn’t usually for me, but this one got right under my skin.” —The School Librarian

Part of Akashic’s Black Sheep YA imprint.

In this richly imagined dystopic future brought by global warming, seventeen-year-old Nat and her hacker brother Sam have come by ship to the Big Island of Hawaii for their parents’ Final Week. The few Americans who still live well also live long—so long that older adults bow out not by natural means but by buying death contracts from the corporates who now run the disintegrating society by keeping the people happy through a constant diet of “pharma.” Nat’s family is spending their pharma-guided last week at a luxury resort complex called the Twilight Island Acropolis.

Deeply conflicted about her parents’ decision, Nat spends her time keeping a record of everything her family does in the company-supplied diary that came in the hotel’s care package. While Nat attempts to come to terms with her impending parentless future, Sam begins to discover cracks in the corporates’ agenda and eventually rebels against the company his parents have hired to handle their last days. Nat has to choose a side. Does she let her parents go gently into that good night, or does she turn against the system and try to break them out?

But the deck is stacked against Nat and Sam: in this oppressive environment, water and food are scarce, mass human migrations are constant, and new babies are illegal. As the week nears its end, Nat rushes to protect herself and her younger brother from the corporates while also forging a path toward a future that offers the hope of redemption for humanity. This page-turning first YA novel by critically acclaimed author Lydia Millet is stylish and dark and yet deeply hopeful, bringing Millet’s characteristic humor and style to a new generation of young readers.

About the Author

LYDIA MILLET is the author of seven novels for adults as well as a story collection called Love in Infant Monkeys (2009), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her first book for middle-grade readers, The Fires Beneath the Sea, was one of Kirkus’s Best Children’s Books of 2011, as well as a Junior Library Guild selection. Millet works as an editor and writer at a nonprofit in Tucson, Arizona, where she lives with her two young children. Pills and Starships is her latest novel.

Praise for Pills and Starships

Pills and Starships, the first young adult novel by Lydia Millet, offers one thrillingly scary scenario . . . There is much here to enjoy.

— Washington Post

A YA novel that runs counter to nearly every YA trend . . . You’ll laugh—until you realize it’s too late, and the world has crumbled around you.
— Brazos Bookstore, Ben’s Year in Books roundup

Millet’s dense novel has more in common with philosophy than with fantasy . . . Millet, never a writer to settle into predictable patterns, manages to find beauty in ugly places . . . this is the best thing about Millet’s work: it makes you notice the small details of the natural world, makes you recognize those details as holy.
— The Rumpus

Lydia Millet offers a brilliant dystopian novel that eclipses all others written for Young Adults with this beautifully written, dark but ultimately hopeful tale.
— The Buffalo News

Dark apocalyptic reading at its best . . . vivid, moving saga that will attract mature teen fans of Divergent, Hunger Games, and similar apocalyptic survival stories.

— Midwest Book Review