Timeslip Tuesday- The Factory

Egan, Kathryn. The Factory. 

January 7, 2025 by Scholastic

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

N.B. I don't want to spoil the ending, so will have to review accordingly!

Asher Doyle lives in a slightly dystopian future with a lot of climate issues, but he has a decent life with his grandmother, Nan. His mother, Lizzy, had him when she was 19, and hasn't raised him, since she has been going to college and trying her hand at a lot of different businesses. His father is senator Garrison Broom, who has given Lizzy some support but demanded that there is a nondisclosure agreement in place so that his political career is not affected. When Lizzy borrows a lot of money from the wrong people, Broom suggests that Asher go to The Factory to take part in an exciting experiment that is hoping to produce clean energy. Since Asher had a bad year in 7th grade, he's okay with going to a new school, although his grandmother holds out until the very last and doesn't want to send him. The Factory is a high security installation in the desert, and the eight new children have to be disinfected and wear white jumpsuits when they arrive. It's a sterile, lab like environment, and the children are not given a lot of information. All of them have sad backstories, and their families desperately need the money. Faith's family lost their home and were in a climate refugee camp before living with relatives. Troy's brother needs expensive care. Most are happy that the food at the school is good, and that the air conditioning always works, and that they are safe from the rampant wildfires that cause the air to be smoky. They're less happy with the online schooling, and the worst is the reason they are there: the extraction chambers. On a schedule, the kids have to don plastic t shirts, go into pods, and be covered with a gel before they are besieged with electrical currents. It makes them all feel drained, and some of the kids become very ill. A few, like Louisa, have gone away and never come back. Troy is going poorly, and his best friend, Vi, is determined to investigate. The kids have found a way to evade the cameras and meet on the roof, and start to plan how to get more information about The Factory. Asher is approached by the director, Dr. Mach, and taken to the city to meet his father. There's a military component to the place that doesn't seem to jibe with the clean energy aspect of the process. When both Troy and another girl, Zoe, become very ill, Vi and Asher cut cords to the extraction containers, which buys them some time. They manage to get into Dr. Lahiri's office and snoop at some of the records, and find alarming information. When Troy is sent away, Dr. Lahiri quits, and Asher and Vi are even more suspicious than ever. When they find that they are not alone in their feeling that something is not right and have some adult backup to their investigation, they make some progress on unraveling the secrets of the "threads" that are being extracted. Will they be able to close down The Factory before too many tragedies occur? 

Strengths: Any book that suprises me is a good thing, and this certainly took my brain on a wild whirl. Note that this is a "Timeslip Tuesday" entry, but I'm not saying anything more about WHY it is! The slightly dystopian but recognizable setting is always a good one, and the characters were varied and easy to remember. The villains are bad people, but we do get some adults who are helpful, even though it's up to the kids, of course, to save the day. The cover is good and creepy, and I think this will be one of those books that in thirty years people will look back and ask their friends "What was that sci fi title that we picked up at the Scholastic bookfair?" because everybody who liked dystopian books bought and talked about, but because it is being issued only in paperback, there are no extant copies! 
Weaknesses: This is a little on the long side, and a lot that didn't forward the plot could have been cut out. Asher likes to create backstories for people he meets, and there's a lot of description that weren't quite necessary. 
What I really think: This reminded me a tiny bit of Landon's 2010 The Limit, which also had students paying off family debt by being in a lab, or Smith's Boy X, but is really rather unique. The length and style make this more upper middle grade (Asher is an 8th grader) but it is available in a prebound format from Scholastic, like Zhao's Last Gamer Standing.