Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 - Andrea White

**** - I love dystopias if they're done well. This one really worked for me. I grew to understand the characters (even if some of them annoyed me), and I believed the set-up. Tele-school AND Historical Survivor sound remarkably realistic to me. Definitely worth a read.

In the year 2083, school past the age of 14 is based on a toss of the dice - or being rich enough to afford it, of course. For those unlucky enough to lose their Toss, life seems bleak indeed - until an episode of Historical Survivor (part of teleschool) offers 5 kids a chance at a scholarship if they reenact Robert Scott's doomed 1912 expedition to the South Pole. But Historical Survivor is very dangerous - and if 5 grown men couldn't escape death, what chance do 5 misfit teenagers have?

This story really gripped me - the five kids each have clearly drawn individual personalities, and they all grew on me. Robert is the 'leader' with mechanical experience, but he rubs others the wrong way with his arrogance. Billy is great with maps and navigation, but he lied about his cold-weather expertise. Plus his mind is on the ratings, not on helping his teammates. Polly is book-smart with a photographic memory and an astonishing, but sometimes debilitating, empathy for the Scott explorers. Grace is an Inupiat Eskimo with a way with animals, but all her knowledge comes from tribal lore - she's lived in Arizona her whole life. And Andrew? Andrew just doesn't want to be a screw-up anymore.

It was great to watch the kids struggle with the elements, unruly animals and each other rather than having one of those insta-bonding experiences. Instead their combined experiences slowly forms a real and believable bond. I grew to care about all of the characters, and I really enjoyed the scenes set in the studio as well. The message at the end was both heartening and fitting. White really pulled it off with Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083.

I haven't read The Hunger Games, so I don't know how this measures up to the YA dystopia everyone's talking about. But I really enjoyed this one, and I don't hesitate to recommend it.

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