What happens when a pandemic causes people to split into Night and Day populations in an attempt to stem the contagion? According to Elizabeth Fama, who also wrote Monstrous Beauty, Men Who Wish to Drown and Overboard, you get improved productivity and better workers. But it turns out that you also get underground rebellions and a perfect setup for a revolution, which is the story she tells in her latest book, Plus One.
Sol Le Coeur is remarkable for nothing, except perhaps her utter mediocrity. But it isn't because she's not smart; it's because her life is slowly grinding her down into dust. She works sealing blister packs after school every night, her beloved grandfather Poppu is dying, and two years ago her older brother Ciel was forcibly transferred from Night to Day. Her parents have been dead since she was an infant. Sol has no reason to be anything but a hollow drudge.
Sol, Poppu and the rest of the Smudges are restricted by law to life in the dark. For twelve hours of sunlight, they are restricted to their homes while the Day population goes about its business. Ciel and the other Rays, the privileged half of society, conduct their lives during the day on a reverse schedule. Sol and Poppu haven't seen Ciel since he was arrested and transferred to Day, haven't received any word other than generic, government-scrubbed birthday texts even though Ciel is a hacking genius. It's why he was arrested in the first place. Convinced that her brother abandoned them, embraced his new life in the sun and moved on, Sol wouldn't care if she never saw Ciel again except for Poppu. When she hears that Ciel has become a father, Sol decides that Night/Day divide be damned, she's going to make sure that her grandfather has a chance to hold his great-granddaughter before he dies.
What starts out as a half-baked kidnapping attempt snowballs into the discovery of a government conspiracy regarding the Night/Day divide, the truth about the rebel tribes known as Noma, and what really killed Sol's parents all those years ago. But Sol's not alone in her wild ride through deals and double-crosses as her situation quickly spirals out of control; she has D'Arcy with her, the Medical Assistant who patched her up when her original kidnapping plan was still in play. Sol's annoyance gradually turns to gratitude when she finds him a valuable ally, with his Day assignment and medical pass for "Plus One," which keeps her out of jail long enough to discover the truth about what's going on around them.
Although I wasn't really hooked until after about the first hundred pages, I found this both a creative and fun read. I was impressed by how the pieces of the puzzle (the Night and Day ministries, the hospital, Ciel, Poppu's illness, and the Noma) came together in an explosion of different motives that all converged with clarity. Even the romance portion of the story (which didn't overpower the other aspects, despite what the book's cover may imply) was carried out in a creative fashion. Although I felt that the revelation was easy to guess at pretty early on, I still enjoyed watching it unfold. Different kinds of chapter headings also helped to indicate where events were set in time: past communications with Sol's desk partner and memories of her family are in chapters with creative titles that somehow refer to the content. Chapters set in the ever-uncertain present of Sol and D'Arcy's life on the run are headed with dates and times, underscoring the fact that they're living in a divided culture, and that the hour of the day dictates certain behaviors or approaches.
I do wish that the history of the Night/Day divide was given a little earlier on in the story, for the sake of curiosity as well as to better understand the culture itself. And while some French, which does appear consistently throughout the book, was easy to understand for a non-speaker like me I do wish that every phrase had been translated in essence if not word for word.
If Fama does a sequel to Plus One, for which there is certainly potential, I'll be curious to see how a few things play out. At the conclusion, the government's hold over the Night/Day divide is just on the cusp of being questioned by the populations at large. Sol's incarceration, Ciel's situation, and how the Night Minister handles the ultimatum that is made her are all potential launching points for the next part of the story. But I also feel like the story could end right here, and still be satisfactory. There isn't the same sense of urgency for more with this book that I've experienced with something like Shadow and Bone or that some people felt while reading The Hunger Games. But that doesn't detract from the fact that I had a pretty enjoyable time making my way through the story with Sol.
Plus One by Elizabeth Fama will be released on April 8th, and can be pre-ordered now at your favorite local, independent bookstore. There's also a prequel short story, from the perspective of a Noma character, being released on March 25th by Tor.com. Enjoy!
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