Access Restricted

by Gregory Scott Katsoulis

Overview

In this gripping sequel to All Rights Reserved, Speth Jime has freed her home of Portland from the oppressive system that forced everyone to pay for every word they spoke. Now she will discover the cost of that freedom, and the devastating secrets of the world beyond her dome.

On the day she went silent, Speth never meant for anyone to follow her lead—or to start a rebellion of Silents. But after taking down the tyrant Silas Rog and freeing the city from his grasp, everyone is looking to Speth for answers she doesn’t have. All she wants is to find her parents, who are shackled to a lifetime of servitude in exchange for a debt they can never repay. But how can Speth leave her friends to fend for themselves when she’s the reason their city is in chaos?

When the government threatens to restore the WiFi and take back the city, Speth is forced to flee with a ragtag group of friends by her side. Together, they embark on a dangerous journey outside the dome they’ve lived in their entire lives, in search of a better future. Along the way, Speth will discover the shattering truth about their world…and the role she’ll need to play to save it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538517277
Publisher:	Harlequin Audio
Publication date:	08/28/2018
Series:	The Word$ Series , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Gregory Scott Katsoulis is a writer, teacher, artist and goofball. He is in love with ideas and possibility. When he is not writing, he composes incidental music, enjoys taking photographs of faces, debunks bunk and confounds children by teaching them about black holes, time-travel paradoxes and the hilarious fallibility of human memory. He lives in the lovely and stimulating Cambridge, Massachusetts. You can visit his website at www.gregorykatsoulis.com for occasional thought updates.

Editorial Reviews

"A fantastic, red-blooded justice-struggle novel." –New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow

"A definite must for fans of the previous volume and a much-needed reminder that words really do matter" -School Library Journal

"A powerful novel with a neatly wrapped-up conclusion." -Kirkus Reviews

"...a rich, descriptive dystopia with [an] interest in wordplay and [an] examination of language itself." - Booklist

"Readers will enjoy this fast-paced adventure and perhaps examine a little more closely the balance of power in the real world." - VOYA

"A chilling, unnerving, and timely debut novel about what it means to speak out, even in silence."
-Katharine McGee, New York Times bestselling author of The Thousandth Floor on All Rights Reserved

"Between the clever premise and the protagonist's stand against a repressive society, Katsoulis's work is timely and will appeal to fans of Dan Wells's Bluescreen, M.T. Anderson's Feed, Cecelia Ahern's Flawed, or Scott Westerfeld's Uglies [series]." -School Library Journal on All Rights Reserved

"Though she doesn't speak, Speth has been given a distinctive and memorable voice by Gregory Scott Katsoulis. All Rights Reserved is both deeply troubling and utterly captivating; a must read for fans of the dystopic, and more specifically of M.T. Anderson's Feed." -Shelf Awareness on All Rights Reserved

"Intense... A provocative setup." -Publishers Weekly on All Rights Reserved

From the Publisher

07/01/2018
Gr 8 Up—In this sequel to the dystopian All Rights Reserved, Speth, the Silent Girl, has blown up her dome's WiFi. She knows it's only a matter of time before the power is restored, speech is once again restricted, and she and her companions are captured and sold. Speth just wants her sister Seratha's shattered leg to be repaired and to find their parents, who are being held as indentured servants. She and fellow Product Placers Henri, Margot, and Kel escape the dome—although Seratha's left behind. They steal a car and drive Fast and Furious—style through the tunnels that connect the inhabited domes with the evil Lucretia Rog and her brutish henchmen in close pursuit. Their dangerous trek takes Speth and her comrades all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border (now called Tejico). Along the way, Speth's ninja skills are needed as she and the others are captured, escape, endure loss, find unexpected allies, and uncover family secrets. This long but eventful novel, equally action-packed and introspective, has some engaging plot twists that will keep readers going. It's a telling look at issues of free speech, repressive regimes, economic inequality, and countries' border relations. VERDICT A definite must for fans of the previous volume and a much-needed reminder that words really do matter.—Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton

School Library Journal

2018-05-28
A reluctant heroine returns to fight the deeply entrenched corruption and greed of a futuristic society in which proprietary rights have trumped those of its individual citizens in this sequel to All Rights Reserved (2017).Speth Jime struggles to find her footing after toppling the Wi-Fi network in her home of Portland, Vermaine. While she's disabled the system that charges people for each word they speak, she's also plunged the city into chaos. Car chases and zip lining across cityscapes are interspersed with weightier passages in which Speth and her diverse group of friends travel across the country, incrementally learning more about the history of the dystopian United States in which they live. This juxtaposition, while sometimes feeling a bit obvious, propels the story forward, and Speth's standoffs with creepily evil, archetypical villain Lucretia Rog establish her as a vulnerable but tough narrator. Careful and cautionary worldbuilding includes factory farms where indentured workers' children are born as property of the corporation and a militarized border between the U.S. and the country Téjico (formerly Mexico), including a huge concrete wall to keep immigrants out of the U.S. Speth's Mexican heritage, alluded to in the first novel, is more visible in this one, with social commentary including the insidious ways people of color have been marginalized and exploited.A powerful novel with a neatly wrapped-up conclusion. (Science fiction. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews