At least a hundred years in the future, global warming has expanded the oceans and covered much of what was the United States-now the Western Collective. She also happens to be a gifted telepath (it runs in the family).
Our protagonist, Nere, is a lonely misfit with weak lungs who gets along better with dolphins than humans. You won’t want to miss it.ĭISCLAIMER: This review was written after reviewing an advance reader's copy (ARC).
The older set will recognize the painful middle-school tenderness of a girl’s first romance. Kids will be fascinated by Nere’s aquatic survival skills and her crucial friendship and telepathy with a pod of dolphins. Part science fiction, part adventure story, The Neptune Project is a fast-paced, well-written story for upper-middle-grade readers. At her mother’s behest, Nere travels over a thousand miles with a group of other genetically altered kids hoping to find her father’s safe haven colony, and along the way the group finds out just how dangerous the sea can be. Thirteen-year-old Nere’s parents realize their best hope for humanity lies in the sea, and they have altered Nere’s genetic makeup to allow her to breathe water like a fish-something Nere only discovers when the government cracks down and she has to flee for her life. Holyoke has drawn up an authoritarian futuristic America sprung from a planet plagued by environmental catastrophes-global warming, polluted oceans, and extinct species. Polly Holyoke has done all this and more with her fabulous debut, The Neptune Project. The detail has to be just right, without overpowering the story the characters have to be grounded in reality, to give us something to identify with and even the nonhuman creatures have to resonate warmth and personality. It takes a skillful author to bring readers into an unfamiliar world and make them feel secure. These products of the "Neptune Project" are supposed to build a better future under the waves, safe from the terrible famines and wars and that rock the surface world.īut there are some big challenges ahead of her: no one ever asked Nere if she wanted to be part of a science experiment the other Neptune kids aren't exactly the friendliest bunch, and in order to reach the safe haven of the new Neptune colony, Nere and her fellow mutates must swim across hundreds of miles of dangerous ocean, relying on their wits, their loyal dolphins and one another to evade terrifying undersea creatures and a government that will stop at nothing to capture the Neptune kids. Nere has never understood why she is so much more comfortable and confident in the water than on land until the day she learns the shocking truth-she is one of a group of kids who have been genetically altered to survive in the ocean. With her weak eyes and useless lungs that often leave her gasping for air, Nere feels more at home swimming with the dolphins her mother studies than she does hanging out with her classmates.
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