Feature Book of the Week #10 Starters by Lissa Price

Feature Book of the Week

Starters

by

Lissa Price

Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.

He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined.

A Guest Post From Lissa Price

Hi Battlers! I’m truly honored that Starters is one of the books you’re covering this year. Readers always like hearing about how I got the idea for the series. But first, let me recap the basis for the stories. The unusual world of Starters where only seniors and teens and younger exist came about because of the Spore Wars where the unvaccinated did not survive the fatal disease. There was only a limited supply of the vaccine so it went to the very young and the very old, leaving the “Middles” unprotected. When the spores were shot out of missiles from the enemy, almost all of the parents inhaled them and died.

That left the world of young people, mostly teens called Starters, and seniors, called Enders.

A few years ago I was trying to get a flu shot from a store called Costco. This is a large, big-box membership store that is housed in a big empty warehouse. No carpet, no dividing walls, just this huge, cold gray space. They have a pharmacy there and when they do flu shots, they shut down several registers and create lines there. I was prepared to get the shot, waiting, a little nervous, when they announced that there wasn’t enough vaccine for everyone. Some batches had been spoiled at the laboratory so our government had set up a triage system: only the very young and the very old could get the vaccine.

I had been waiting a while, so I was not happy. My mind started to rationalize why this shouldn’t be. I thought – wait, if this was a killer disease, and only the most vulnerable people are going to get the vaccine, then all you’d have left would be the weakest members of society. How would they be able to carry on?

And then I thought – that’s a great idea for a book. So I left without my flu shot but with something else – something much more important. I thought about the idea for a long time asking myself what this story should be about? What are ways for conflict? How do the elderly and the young not get along? I thought of how, unless you’re related, most seniors don’t want to be around young people – they’re too noisy and dangerous, riding skateboards and scooters, knocking the elderly over. And how would the elderly take advantage of them? They can vote while the teens cannot. They’d enact the no-work law so the teens could not take jobs away from them at places like McDonalds.  Because some of the seniors would be wealthy after years of investing, but others would need an income because they lived longer than they’d imagined. And of course, the biggest reason they’d exploit the teens is they would want to have their healthy bodies – at least temporarily.

So that’s how I looked at the world around me and invented the world of Starters.  When student writers ask where do you get your ideas, I just say: Costco.

Visit me at www.lissaprice.com or follow me on Twitter @Lissa_Price 

About the Author 

Lissa Price’s debut novel STARTERS is an international bestseller published in over thirty countries, with praise from Kami Garcia and Harlan Ellison. Dean Koontz called this YA futuristic thriller “a smart, swift, inventive, altogether gripping story.” STARTERS appeared on many best of lists and won top awards in the Netherlands, Germany and France. Kirkus called  the sequel, ENDERS, “delightfully disturbing,” and La Fenice Book said: “Enders is one of the most original dystopian stories that has been published.”

Starters is a YALSA Quick Pick, a Best YA Thriller, a Granite Book Award Winner and more. It made several state reading lists in both the Middle Grade and Teen categories, as well as the International Reading Association’s list. Chosen by Barnes & Noble as one of only four debuts on the Best Teen Books of the Year, and debuted as #2 on the SCIBA Indie Bookseller’s List. With high praise from Booklist, Kirkus, Dean Koontz, Kami Garcia, Harlan Ellison, and the LA Times. Now in the 8th printing.