Enclave - Ann Aguire

In Deuce’s world, people earn the right to a name only if they survive their first fifteen years. By that point, each unnamed ‘brat’ has trained into one of three groups–Breeders, Builders, or Hunters, identifiable by the number of scars they bear on their arms. Deuce has wanted to be a Huntress for as long as she can remember.

As a Huntress, her purpose is clear—to brave the dangerous tunnels outside the enclave and bring back meat to feed the group while evading ferocious monsters known as Freaks. She’s worked toward this goal her whole life, and nothing’s going to stop her, not even a beautiful, brooding Hunter named Fade. When the mysterious boy becomes her partner, Deuce’s troubles are just beginning.

Down below, deviation from the rules is punished swiftly and harshly, and Fade doesn’t like following orders. At first Deuce thinks he’s crazy, but as death stalks their sanctuary, and it becomes clear the elders don’t always know best, Deuce wonders if Fade might be telling the truth. Her partner confuses her; she’s never known a boy like him before, as prone to touching her gently as using his knives with feral grace.

As Deuce’s perception shifts, so does the balance in the constant battle for survival. The mindless Freaks, once considered a threat only due to their sheer numbers, show signs of cunning and strategy… but the elders refuse to heed any warnings. Despite imminent disaster, the enclave puts their faith in strictures and sacrifice instead. No matter how she tries, Deuce cannot stem the dark tide that carries her far from the only world she’s ever known.

Time to review a book I've been dying to write about for several months. Why? Because this book is terrible. I only finished it so I could review it on my blog. Now, I don't normally read and review books that suck, but the major flaw in this novel is one that I've seen in miniature in a lot of other books—an unbelievable premise; some major flaw in the laws of physics or psychology or what-not that renders the entire book (or the majority of it) unviable, even when the rest of the writing works.

A good example is the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson. The kids can fly because they have 2% avian DNA and hollow bones like birds (and wings, obviously). Only one problem with that—they have enhanced human musculature. The human body is a delicate thing. Our bones are just strong enough that with the help of ligaments and tendons, our muscles can't snap them in half. Enhance our musculature but weaken our skeletal structure, and you've basically got crippled wrecks who can't move because our bodies don't work.

But the flaws in Ann Aguire's Enclave is more obvious than the one in Max Ride, since a lot of people don't actually know about the muscle-skeletal relationship and so some people might not get snagged on that. But the issues in Enclave are more obvious, like I said. Let me set the stage here.

In the future, after a zombie apocalypse, everyone in New York City who survived moved underground into the subway tunnels, deep in the dark. They've set up these underground outposts called enclaves. The zombies have moved into the subway, too, but the enclaves are fortified against them. The zombie apocalypse was about sixty or seventy years ago. Now the main character, Deuce, just turned fifteen—a big deal if you live that long, and it means you're an adult. They've got a fairly functional society in this little enclave…

And THAT is my first problem.

Deuce and her entire enclave have NEVER been outside. They've never been exposed to the sunshine and have no such thing as UV or sun-lamps. They have no idea what vitamins are. They don't eat ANY fruit or vegetables of ANY kind except mushrooms. Unlike in a novel with a similar society (City of Ember), their diet consists of mushrooms, fish caught in underground pools, and water. So no milk, either. No red meat. And no vitamin supplements. Do you know what lack of sunshine, fruit, veggies, red meat, and milk amounts to?

Death. Very painful death. That's what it amounts to.

- You have no vitamin D from the sun or from milk. Lack of vitamin D causes jaundice, muscle and skin pain and other skin issues, and depression. That's one of the reasons depression is more common in places where there's a lot of rain or snow and not a lot of sunshine. Also, vitamin D is essential for absorbing calcium (both vitamin D and calcium are in milk). Without vitamin D, even if you get calcium from somewhere else, your body can't absorb it. See point 3 for what happens then. Yet no one in the enclave has these problems.

- You have no vitamin C from oranges, lemons, limes, or tomatoes in their diet. Lack of vitamin C causes scurvy. Your gums get swollen and tender and they bleed, your teeth fall out, your toenails turn icky colors, blah-blah-blah. Scurvy can kill you. Yet no one in the enclave suffers from scurvy.

- You have no calcium from milk or dairy products. Lack of calcium causes rickets, brittle bones, lost of bone density, the onset of early osteoporosis, etc. Kids in third-world countries suffer from rickets and such, and kids in medieval times. Untreated, rickets could cripple and/or kill a kid well before they reached their fifteenth birthday. And yet no one in the enclave suffers from rickets or any of these other problems either, either.

Add onto that, someone with cruddy bones couldn't easily or properly do the things the kids in the enclave are required to do: work in their little tool-making area hauling heavy equipment and such, fight against the incredibly fast and strong zombies, or handle the strain of carrying and birthing babies (without the help of modern medicine). Yet no one talks about that in Enclave, either.

- No iron from red meat induces anemia. Anemia can also prove fatal if left untreated. My elder sister once suffered from such severe anemia on a regular, I-buy-my-groceries-at-the-supermarket diet that the hospital almost forced her to stay overnight to make sure she'd be okay when she went in for blood tests. Some side-effects of anemia include weakness, dizziness, and fainting spells…which no one in the enclave has.

- Everybody knows you've got to eat your fruits and vegetables, right? You're not going to get all your vitamins and minerals from some crummy, underground mushrooms.

Keratin for your eyes, for example. Keratin (which is in carrots) helps with your eyesight, helps develop it, etc. The people in the enclaves have tremendously awesome night vision. Understandable, since they live underground with only handmade torches…except that there is NO keratin in their diet from ANY source whatsoever, and yet once Deuce and Fade go aboveground, their eyesight turns out just peachy. Better than peachy after they've had a day (a freaking day) to adjust to the intense light.

Another example is magnesium. Magnesium is found in a lot of green vegetables such as collard greens, broccoli, etc. You need magnesium for a lot of things, including absorbing other vitamins. It also helps you maintain a healthy digestive tract. Yet they don't eat any greens, and are surprisingly healthy.

So the structure of their society is fine. It's actually kind of interesting—the naming ceremony at fifteen and how you're given your job then based on how much pain you can handle (one cut with the ritual knife, you're a worker; two cuts, you're a breeder; three cuts, you're a fighter). That's all very clever. But unfortunately, the way the society survives is completely unbelievable.

Also, the breeders? Going back to the diet-thing real quick, they nurse their babies when they're born. That's nice, that's good. Except without proper diet, the human body can't produce enough milk to adequately feed a baby. Malnutrition (which miraculously none of them are suffering from) can affect the quantity of milk produced, or even interfere with the ability to produce it at all. But this is not mentioned and does not influence the story in any way, shape, or form.

Which would work if these people were aliens or something—or if they'd evolved like this over a few (or several) hundred years—but it's been less than a century and they're regular humans. This doesn't work at ALL. The whole world crumbles because these people shouldn’t even be alive based on how they live. It's like having a story where we threw a bunch of humans into a gas chamber full of CO2 and they miraculously adapted and spawned like bunnies, even though humans can't actually subsist on carbon-dioxide.

Then there's the characterization for the secondary characters. Deuce has two friends, one who's a breeder and one who's a worker. They've been friends since they were itty bitty. Yet when Deuce takes the fall for one of them (the breeder, who was actually framed in the first place) they turn on her without hesitation. Both of her so-called friends are like, "Gasp! You broke the law! You're evil! Get out of our enclave even though it means certain death! We don't love you anymore!" Yet her partner, Fade, whom she's known for less than a year, risks death and other things to follow her.

So to put that in perspective—lifelong friends who are like her family abandon and despise her instead of trusting in her innocence and/or not believing she did whatever she was framed for even though one of them JUST got framed for something; guy she's known less than a year risks his life to go with her into the dark of the zombie-infested tunnels.

Fast-forward to when Deuce and Fade reach the surface. So, to be clear here—Deuce has NEVER been under the sun EVER. She's never gone outside, she's never seen light stronger than a torch (which gives less illumination than your average light bulb). She's never been exposed to UV rays of ANY KIND.

Yet when she goes outside for the first time in her fifteen years, does she get a sunburn? Nope. Not a real one. The light prickles a bit (imagine sun on a bad sunburn) but does she turn red or get peeling skin or blisters or anything? No, she does not. Does the light hurt her eyes? Yes, it does, but it only takes a couple of days for her to acclimate to it. Is she freakishly pale from lack of light? Nope.

Now, I've read the book Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews, and in that book four kids are locked up and held prisoner in three rooms (a small bedroom with two beds, a bathroom, and one big attic) for almost three years. One of the kids dies, another one gets really sick (though this is because of something else) but their stay in those three rooms, never allowed out into the sun or allowed to see the sun except through the barred windows, bleaches them out. They look like they're dead. Skin that's almost gray, blond hair bleached to a dead-looking white. And that's from lack of sun for a little less than three years. Deuce hasn’t seen the sun EVER…but she looks normal. A little on the pasty side, but that's it. How? It's never explained. It just IS.

And then comes my other big problem (the first two were the diet and her cruddy friends), and really it's the biggest, stupidest problem in the entire book. I'm sorry, but this thing that I take issue with should never have happened. This book is for teenagers. Here's what my problem is:

Deuce gets captured aboveground by this guy named Stalker. Stalker and his gang of thugs KIDNAP GIRLS TO RAPE THEM for breeding purposes. Deuce meets up with one little girl who's maybe twelve or thirteen, one of their captives and they become friends.

Let me repeat this in simple terms: STALKER AND HIS GANG KIDNAP AND RAPE GIRLS MULTIPLE TIMES.

Why do I have a problem with that plot device? I don't. It's a viable and realistic concept. What I DO have a problem with is that after Deuce and the other girl get rescued, against the advice of Deuce's partner Fade (who loves her and has stuck with her this whole time), and even though Stalker attacked and hurt her and the other kid, when Stalker's like, "I'm coming with you guys," SHE LETS HIM! And then she lets him teach her some fighting skills, lets him give her the nickname of Dove, and finds him attractive. He's the third part of her love-triangle and she makes him part of their group. And she BLAMES the younger girl for what Stalker and those psychos did to her!

No. No, no, no.

NO.

I'm sorry, but there will never be a young adult or new adult novel where a known murderer and rapist who willingly and ruthlessly preys upon innocent people can become one of the heroes. I doubt this could ever happen in an adult novel, either. This novel idolizes someone disgusting. Deuce should have killed him when she had the chance. He should NEVER have become part of their group. He should NEVER have become a so-called "good guy." That's revolting. What sort of heroine is Deuce, that she could view someone like Stalker and someone like Teagan (the other girl) in such a way? What sort of author is Ann Aguire, that she would write something like that?

For the first time on this blog, a book gets 0.25 stars. The mechanics of the writing are good—no misspelled words, no bad grammar. The society Deuce comes from is structured in an interesting manner, and some of the descriptions are good. Everything else? No. 0.25 stars, and Deuce? When I have kids, I'm going to tell them: do NOT be like her. EVER.

- LA Knight