Review: The Reject by Edyth Bulbring

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The Reject is the sequel to The Mark, where the author set up a gritty,  post-catastrophe, dystopian world set in the State of Mangeria near where a now submerged Cape Town South Africa once stood. Bulbring envisions is highly stratified and essentially feudal society with worker castes and a ruling class. It is a brutal existence where you are tolerated only as long as you are productive. Each person is stamped with an indelible mark that assigns an identifier and caste at birth. The mark is generated by The Machine, a giant solar powered computer which can also track individuals by their mark. Our protagonist is 15 year old Juliet Seven, known as Ettie, who was born to be drudge, in service to a Posh (ie upper class) family.

There is a little bit of the fantastical in this world: Juliet is the Chosen One, destined to bring down this oppressive society; and there are talking birds that tell the future.
Don't let this put you off: these fantastical elements are really not over done so we are not talking about a urban fantasy type of book. I would say that there is more science fiction than fantasy in this world.  particularly in The Reject.

The Mark ends with Juliet planning to escape from Mangeria by boat with a young Posh man with whom she has fallen in love.

The Reject begins immediately after the events of The Mark. The revolution has broken out and the city is in flames. But in a disastrous turn of events, the escape boat is hijacked by a Reject (ie a non-person as far as society is concerned) who Juliet dubs Captain Gollum, a name he unironically embraces having no knowledge of Tolkien. If that isn't bad enough, a storm blows them out to sea leaving Juliet, Captain Gollum, and Reader, the blind past trader (ie he has read books) in a desperate struggle to survive. 

I don't want to be guilty of massive spoilers but I think I can safely say that our small band of survivors discover that Mangeria isn't alone in the world and that the conflagration, the catastrophe that blasted the world, may not be entirely in the past. They have some some remarkable adventures before returning to Mangeria to complete the story. I would also say that the biggest science fiction elements are in The Reject.

Where The Mark set up set up the world, The Reject puts the story and action on Juliet and her companions. Juliet already had to mature beyond what  we would expect from a 15 year old in order to survive but in The Reject we see her pushing her capabilities and building an iron will to survive. The author also gives Captain Gollum a character arc that is very satisfying and nicely, if subtly developed. Like a good dystopian story, it gets readers to ask themselves: could I make it in this world?; what would my life be like if I was in one of the worker castes?; what kind of person would I be as a Posh?

Setting aside the fantastical elements like the Chosen One and talking prophet birds, Bulbring's world is easily acceptable. I can see a society reverting to feudalism to maintain structure in a brutal environment and it would definitely suck to be in a worker caste. And if you are wondering what else has survived the conflagration besides people and at least one species of bird, yes, cockroaches do indeed make it through the apocalypse.

The Mark and The Reject are YA novels but I found them engrossing stories with layered characters I cared about. I can see these books being used as teaching tools and sparking discussion.

I think there could be more story to be told in this world but I won't feel cheated if the author chooses to end the story with The Reject.