The Pledge (The Pledge Trilogy) - Hardcover

Derting, Kimberly

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1442422017 ISBN 13: 9781442422018

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2011

Synopsis

In the violent country of Ludania, the language you speak determines what class you are, and there are harsh punishments if you forget your place—looking a member of a higher class in the eye can result in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina (Charlie for short) can understand all languages, a dangerous ability she’s been hiding her whole life. Her only place of release is the drug-filled underground club scene, where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. There, she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy who speaks a language she’s never heard, and her secret is almost exposed. Through a series of violent upheavals, it becomes clear that Charlie herself is the key to forcing out the oppressive power structure of her kingdom....

About this title

Review:

Amazon Exclusive: Margaret Stohl Reviews The Pledge

Margaret Stohl writes the bestselling Beautiful Creatures novels along with coauthor Kami Garcia. The latest book in the series is Beautiful Chaos. She is also the author of the forthcoming Icons, the first book in a new YA series.

Margaret Atwood once wrote, "War is what happens when language fails." As a writer, of course, I'm always particularly interested when people who love words tell stories of the power of words; I felt that way about Ally Condie's stolen remnants of poetry in Matched, and again in Kimberly Derting's fierce contest of language in The Pledge. Atwood, Condie, and Derting are circling around the same fire, here; if you liked one you'll like the others, as I did, and I suggest all three.

Powerful people can speak, more powerful people can control the story. Within the sharply, smartly drawn world of The Pledge, of all the many layers of regulated dialect and mediated power, only one language is essentially magic—-the untaught, instinctual language of the ruling class. What happens when someone powerless can suddenly speak and understand it? What happens when that someone is a young woman with something of her own to say? What happens when she chooses to love someone she shouldn't, someone who speaks it too?

We writers talk so often about voice, but this is one of the few YA novels I've ever seen that expressly examines the power of a girl's own voice, her right to have it and use it. The Pledge is deeply written and deeply felt, and I look forward to the sequel. --Margaret Stohl

About the Author:

Kimberly Derting is the author of the BODY FINDER series (HarperCollins) and the upcoming release, THE PLEDGE (Nov 15, 2011, Simon & Schuster). She lives in the Pacific Northwest, the ideal place to write anything dark or creepy...a gloomy day can set the perfect mood. She lives with her husband and their three beautiful (and often mouthy) children who provide an endless source of inspiration.

About this edition

• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1442422017
• ISBN 13: 9781442422018
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336