Blog Tour: The Nameless by Stuart White

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Nameless, the new dystopian Young Adult title from author Stuart White

Much as I love middle grade, sometimes it’s really nice to read something with a bit more flesh on its bones and increasingly I am loving the Young Adult reads that come my way. Here is a book that I really enjoyed – one that has been compared to the extremely popular The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. As someone who has as yet not read those titles, reading the note at the start of this novel acknowledging the writer’s love for those books as well as Aldous Huxley’s classic Brave New World – which I read a very long time ago – amongst others, I wondered what this would be like.

What I found is a tense and exciting story, one that left me wanting more as I rooted for hero Seven as he leaves behind the life he has always believed would be his and becomes one of the Nameless – those fighting a cruel and unjust system – and seeks the truth about his origins which has been carefully hidden from him.

On what he anticipates being the biggest day of his life, Seven and his fellow trainees are spending their final day at training camp ahead of sitting their Caste Tests the following day. Reflecting on the chance to finally learn his name and meet his real family, he watches fellow trainee Six as she chews her nails before she speaks to him when she shouldn’t and is instantly told to expect the prescribed penalty by the Guardian supervising the group. Claiming he was responsible, Seven takes the resulting punishment for her and uses the emotional shutdown technique he has been taught to try to block out the pain that has been inflicted.

Arriving at the test centre, the trainees are sent to clean themselves up and dress in the white uniform of the Guardians and as they do so, they discuss in which branch of the Realm’s staffing they are hoping to be assigned, with some of the others stating they would rather die than suffer the shame of failure and being exiled as one of the Nameless. When some of the other young men wind him up about his attraction to Six, Seven lashes out, trying his hardest to focus on the importance of passing the tests as he struggles to master his anger. After the completing the tests, Seven and the others assemble to receive their results and work allocations and Seven and Six sit together and try to calm one another’s nerves.

Before the ceremony starts, they watch a news video issuing a statement from the Autokratōr – the Realm’s leader – and Seven is given the opportunity to speak with his foster mother, who has come to watch the proceedings. When Six is called up, the ceremony is unexpectedly interrupted and the trainees sent out before Seven is summoned to speak with Serra, the Chief Tester, who tells him that the results of one of his tests are not what they expected and his loyalty to the Realm has been called into question. Once he has proved his allegiance, he is reunited with the rest of the trainees and Six but not long after the centre is attacked by outside forces and a strange woman appears who has clearly been looking for him. Together with Six, Seven is led outside by her and finds himself being driven away to join a group of exiles. With more questions than answers, Seven is now a wanted man and must decide to whom his loyalties lie and just what he is prepared to do to find out his name…

For those of us living in a democracy, the idea of the state making every decision on our behalf – something that we seem to be creeping ever closer to – is a terrifying one but even more terrifying is the idea that those living within such a system support it without question. For Seven, who has always dreamed of the day that he is given his name and his family – things that all of us expect as our right -and his future, in which we all anticipate being free to make our own choices, the discovery that the Realm is not run for the benefit of its citizens and that until now his life has been a well-hidden lie is a shocking one that he struggles to comprehend.

Already knowledgeable about some of the Realm’s practices, such as drugging its subjects’ food to subdue their emotions, he has up until now only shared this with Six and although he has minimised the amount of tainted food he has eaten, such is his devotion to his homeland that until the events that unfold at the Destination Ceremony and afterwards show him clearly that all is not as it should be, he is content to go along with the destiny set out for him. With Six beside him, he soon starts to question everything – even the feelings he has for the woman with whom he initially believes he will spend his future.

Set in our near future, the world in which Seven and Six live is recognisable as our own with only a few changes such as genetically modified lifeforms, the advanced weaponry that is used and the presence of cannibals to set it apart. Aimed very firmly at a Young Adult audience, much of the violence within the story is not overly graphic but torture is used briefly within the book possibly making this a read that would be better suited to those a little older than the 12+ readers I would normally recommend such books for. I very much enjoyed it and am hugely looking forward to finding out what happens next in Book 2, for which I do not as yet have a date.

As always, my enormous thanks go to publisher Penobi Press and to The WriteReads for my gifted virtual copy of the book and for inviting me to take part in the blog tour. The Nameless is on sale now.