Variant

Hey, everyone. Today I am going to review Variant by Robison Wells. It is about a boy named Benson Fisher and his survival in his new, yet unusually different school. Here is the synopsis:

Benson Fisher thought that a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life.

He was wrong.

Now he’s trapped in a school that’s surrounded by a razor-wire fence. A school where video cameras monitor his every move. Where there are no adults. Where the kids have split into groups in order to survive.

Where breaking the rules equals death.

But when Benson stumbles upon the school’s real secret, he realizes that playing by the rules could spell a fate worse than death, and that escape—his only real hope for survival—may be impossible.

I thought that Variant was a 4.5 stars out of 5 stars. Variant really is different than most prep school novels seeing as the school is run by kids. The premises sounded great. The novel was constantly filled with nonstop drama, action, and suspense. It really surprised me at the end of the novel when the mystery is solved at what is really going on in the school.

The School:

The setting was great. It had me hooked on the book. The setting was modern, not really in an old building. The technology was far more advanced than the technology in the outside world. I also loved how the school is really divided into three groups: Society (the goody-two shoes), Havoc (the troublemakers), and Variant (the kids who don't like Havoc and Society).

The Characters:

The characters had amazing personalities. I thought that the personalities of the different leaders of the different groups were amazing. I did not really enjoy Benson's character throughout the first half of the novel because he is very stubborn and selfish. Other than that, the other characters were great!

The Rules:

There were four basic rules. Simple, yet standard rules. They were rules that you would expect at a regular school:nothing special.

Overall, Variant was a great read, and I would definitely recommend it to others. This novel left me hanging. It was really good.