Review Detail

CALM by S.J. Baker is the YA Dystopian novel we’ve been missing! Ever since publishing decided this genre’s market was saturated, we haven’t gotten a truly good story in this space in years, but Baker has finally relieved the dry spell. In CALM, the government has maintained control over the citizens by introducing a drug in the water supply that makes people docile and compliant. However, there are some folks whom the drug doesn’t work on, and others who resist taking it. Those people are enemies of the state, just like Owyn and Tiegan, our dual p.o.v. protagonists. When we meet them, they are quickly forced on the run for different reasons, and attempt to head north, where they hear it’s safer for people like them. However, getting there is dangerous, and not everyone will survive.

Baker is not shy to force her characters into very difficult experiences that are bleak but realistic to the circumstances. When reading, I never knew who would be safe by the end of this story or what was coming next, just like real life. Because of that, I was often on the edge of my seat and deeply rooting for the characters.

There are also major plot twists in the book that I absolutely did not see coming, and really love, which is a testament to how well Baker developed the narrative. What’s most important about a dystopia is for readers to be able to see how easily our world could descend into something like theirs, and how truly terrible that would be, which Baker alludes to when allowing us to glimpse at the snowballing events.

Overall, CALM puts the pedal to the metal and never lets up. I strongly recommend it to all the Hunger Games and Divergent fans from the 2010s who want another good dystopian. Unfortunately, the publishing company for this book recently closed, but hopefully someone else will pick it up, because a sequel is very much needed!