AUTHOR: Ana Alonso and Javier Pelegrín
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
GENRE:Young adult
READER’S NAME: Tony Beckwith
DATE: May 24, 2021
Sara is the narrator of this page-turner. She is in her mid-teens, living in a dystopian post-globalization future set in Los Angeles in the year 2055. Commercial brands are the dominant force in life and society at every level, and about ten elite companies control everything. One of the most prestigious firms is Sweet Pink, a highly coveted line of products for women.
Sara’s mother, obsessed with getting her daughter a job at Sweet Pink, has trained her to be the perfect candidate and the moment of truth is at hand. Sara takes her exams, passes them brilliantly, and is swept up into the bosom of the business. There she meets her boss, the steely and manipulative Juliette, and things get complicated. Sara’s grades were so good that she has been handpicked to represent the brand, but this doesn’t protect her from the jealousies and bullying of her boss’s daughter, who wants to be a star but doesn’t have what it takes. Juliette arranges for her new employee to train as a singer, and Sara finds that she has an unsuspected talent for musical composition. She also discovers a repugnant secret in her employer’s operations that compounds her rising doubts about her new career. She realizes that if she can’t find a way to make the brand change certain procedures she will have to resign.
Unknown to anyone, Sara has had a chip implanted in her brain that allows her to mentally dictate her thoughts and observations and store them without Sweet Pink’s knowledge, a rare exception to the brand’s policy of total control. She has sufficient technical skill to secretly create a blog under a different name on the underground web and hide her electronic tracks so that no one will be able to follow her. Or so she thinks. She starts writing about the firm’s questionable practices and when she posts her critical pieces, she is immediately overwhelmed with replies from like-minded rebels living in the shadows. One of them, the mysterious Dani Dark, seems to understand her plight and is sympathetic and supportive. She feels attracted to him but can she trust him? She doesn’t even know who he really is! She is at a moral crossroad: if she’s found to be disloyal to the brand, she will lose everything and her family will suffer materially and emotionally. But if she remains loyal, she will become corrupt and will end up as warped and twisted as Juliette, a fate she refuses to accept. What to do? .
This book—which is more than just a book—was written by Ana Alonso and Javier Pelegrín, who have “shared life and a literary adventure” for the last dozen years. This creative team is already well-known for works such as El Secreto de If (The Secret of If), which was awarded the Barco de Vapor prize for young adult literature in 2008, and for sagas such as La llave del tiempo (The Key to Time) and Tatuaje (Tattoo), which have been translated into several languages.
Sara’s stream-of-consciousness narrative is a young adult’s fantasy about the world’s social and commercial structures a few decades into the future, though many of the issues she discusses are just as relevant today, in 2021. The writing is sharp and sparkling and never slows down; Sara is thoughtful and intelligent and her highly articulate ruminations keep the senses engaged.
Historia de Sara is part of the “I Hate Pink” saga that includes the adventures of other characters and stories set in this global society of the future. Interested readers can access the transmedia project created by the authors and explore an impressive range of digital resources and information that provide a different reading experience online. For example, Dani Dark’s blog can be seen at www.blogdanidark.com. Readers are also invited to participate, to unleash their creativity and contribute their own material at www.odioelrosa.com. With a little cultural tweaking this book, and its digital backup, sound like something that would appeal to the comparable demographic in the American market. All this material would, of course, have to be translated as well if the saga were to be published in the United States.
