Title: Behind the Gates (Tomorrow Girls #1)
Author: Eva Gray [goodreads]
Genre: Dystopian
Publisher: Scholastic
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Parental Advisory: war, criminal activity
Teachable Moments: teamwork, survival skills, espionage, treason, dependance on technology, resourcefulness

“While they talk I glance around the suite.  I’m shocked to see that there aren’t any computers anywhere.  On closer inspection I notice that the electrical outlets are all plugged up.  There are a few lamps and an overhead fan, but that’s it.”

Summary (from the publisher):
Disaster and destruction are all thirteen-year-old Louisa has ever known.  But now she and her best friend, Maddie, are among the lucky few being sent to boarding school, far from home.  Finally, a taste of freedom!

Country Manor School isn’t perfect:  The girls’ new roommates are tough to get along with, and the school is hard work.  Still, Louisa loves CMS — the survival skills classes, the fresh air.  She doesn’t even miss not having TV, or the Internet or any contact with home.  It’s for their own safety, after all.

Or is it?

Opinion:
This was probably one of the fastest reads I’ve picked up in quite some time.  A middle school book, Behind the Gates is the first in a series that is eerily similar in theme to Marsden’s Tomorrow series.  Though much lighter on the violence (as of this book there wasn’t any yet) it is also about children surviving a war.

Set in an undisclosed time in the future, Behind the Gates centers around four girls who are taken from their affluent families and brought to a remote school.  Though this school is originally thought to be academic they are quick to learn that it is more of an outward bound program.  Stripped of all technology and communication devices the girls are suddenly isolated from their families.  More significantly, the identity bracelets they are bound by law to wear at all times are removed and taken away. Now they are alone, unable to reach out to the people who know them and are stripped of their identities.

Big trouble looms right?

You betcha!

The girls are told that they have been brought to this school for their own safety.  A mantra that plays on a continuous loop throughout the story as it becomes the standard answer to pretty much any question that an adult doesn’t want to answer.  Kept on an extremely rigid schedule of activities and chores the girls begin their education.  While there are some academics the bulk of courses focus on survival skills (camping, knots, fire building, etc.) in an effort to prepare them to become part of a new and improved society.

The plot focuses specifically on four girls — two of which are skeptical of the school’s intentions and two of which embrace it.  Paying particular attention to the social and group dynamics it was interesting to see these young girls living together for the first time while learning to deal with the strict supervision of the school administration.  As one might expect, tempers flare and tensions were high.

As a seasoned reader, the rigid structure the girls were forced to live under at school immediately put me on notice that things were not as they seemed.  Having said that, as a book targeting middle-graders I don’t know that readers that age would be as swift to recognize what was going on.  They would likely be more inclined to follow the path designed by the author — becoming more enthralled by the infighting between the girls and putting the emotional investment in Louisa’s efforts to find happiness.  I suspect their recognition of all the political intrigues would come much further down the line than mine.  This is a good thing, as it provides the reader the opportunity to have that “aha” or “OMG” moment at the end when some key revelations are made.

<HUGE spoiler>

I kinda have to tell you about the big revelation.  Mainly because it influences some of my opinion on the plausibility of the book.  Basically, the teachers of the school are really agents of the military from the other side.  They have taken the girls so that when the Alliance (as it’s called) gets a step closer to world domination they have leverage with the powerful and rich through the captivity of their children.   A good twist that is revealed at the very bitter end of the story that totally made sense.

Where I struggled most with it is not that this was actually the case but that even given the fact that the US was pretty much decimated by war and climate change any parent would allow their young child to get on a bus to a school in an unknown location led by people they’ve never met.  I won’t even get into the lack of communication situation that was set up.  Now, it could be that this is worked through in future books in the series but I struggled with this….a lot.

I’ll also add that some of what I struggled with likely could have been minimized by more world building.  There were small details that alluded to how desperate times were but there wasn’t so much to it all.

</spoiler>

As an entry into dystopian fiction for younger readers Behind the Gates definitely hits the mark.  It’s a quick read with understandable dialogue and relatable characters.  Despite some of the issues I had I’m definitely on board to read the remaining books as I want to see how the girls navigate the war and the circumstances they were thrown into at the end of Behind the Gates.