Sinless

TV writer Tarkoff’s debut novel, a by-the-numbers dystopian near-future YA story (inexplicably being marketed to adults) set in a world in which “good” or “bad” actions result in divine punishments of beauty or disfigurement, boasts little that’s new or interesting. Grace Luther, as gorgeous as her name is ludicrous, is the daughter of a cleric—an earthbound representative of the Great Spirit who has taken over the entire planet, eliminating all traditional religions as actual divine punishment for good and bad behavior becomes manifest. Grace’s mother died when the Revelation hit, and her best friend, Jude, was taken by the clerics after he caused a car accident. Her life is turned upside-down when a man attempts to rape her and never suffers divine consequences, and again when she learns that Jude is alive, both incidents revealing that the world is more complicated than she’d thought. Tarkoff’s work vanishes in the large recent corpus of dystopian works mixing social commentary and teen angst, with nothing to recommend it over its peers. (Jan.)