cover image Rebels: City of Indra

Rebels: City of Indra

Kendall and Kylie Jenner with Maya Sloan and Elizabeth Killmond-Roman. S&S/Gallery/Hunter, $17.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-4516-9442-0

Two smart, strong, but very different orphans narrate this dystopian adventure, a debut for the youngest Kardashian sisters. Spirited Livia, the daughter of a revered geneticist, grows up privileged but stifled on an island in the sky, while hotheaded Lex survives an unloving orphanage underground and is recruited into the military. When Kane, Lex's love interest and fellow soldier, is arrested during a botched attempt to assassinate Livia, Lex goes to rescue Kane%E2%80%94meeting Livia, in the process, and learning that they share a forbidden connection. Through the girls' alternating perspectives, readers get a sense of the corrupt world that has emerged after a mysterious "Great Catastrophe," where nature is now synthesized and the only way to see an ocean is virtually. Details about the two worlds the girls inhabit are creative, though the plot that emerges after they meet is rather predictable. Even so, abundant action%E2%80%94including a hair-pulling fight, a high-speed chase on flying machines, and an attack by hideous beings known as "mutations"%E2%80%94provides momentum. Unresolved conflicts set the scene for the next installment. Ages 14%E2%80%93up. Agent: Mel Berger, William Morris Endeavor. (June)