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The Program
432 pages
A tense, emotionally charged fight to hold onto love and identity in a world that demands absolute numbness.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like holding your breath in a room where the walls are slowly closing in. It plunges you into a chillingly sterile world where feeling too deeply is a crime, wrapping you in an atmosphere of constant, suffocating paranoia. The narrative is driven by an intense, desperate romance that serves as the only lifeline in a sea of forced numbness. The prose is accessible but emotionally raw, keeping the stakes agonizingly high as the characters fight a losing battle against their own minds and a clinical, oppressive system. It is a propulsive, angsty read that will completely consume fans of dystopian fiction who crave stories about the terrifying fragility of memory, the heavy burden of grief, and the defiant power of first love.
- Mood
- claustrophobic
- tense
- melancholic
- paranoiac
- Tone
- urgent
- earnest
- desperate
- angsty
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- the weight of memory · emotional suppression · fighting for identity · the burden of grief · defiant first love
- The writing
- Accessible and emotionally immediate, focusing heavily on the raw, internal psychological states of its characters.
- The arc
- Moves from suffocating paranoia and desperate clinging to love, through profound disorientation, toward a defiant reclamation of self.
- Who it's for
- Readers who devour high-stakes YA dystopias where intense, desperate romance is the only anchor against a sterile, oppressive world.
Content notes
- suicide
- depression
- grief
- memory loss
- medical trauma
- gaslighting
About the book
In this “gripping tale for lovers of dystopian romance” (Kirkus Reviews), true feelings are forbidden, teen suicide is an epidemic, and the only solution is The Program.
Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment. Sloane’s parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they’ll do anything to keep her alive. She also knows that everyone who’s been through The Program returns as a blank slate. Because their depression is gone—but so are their memories.
Under constant surveillance at home and at school, Sloane puts on a brave face and keeps her feelings buried as deep as she can. The only person Sloane can be herself with is James. He’s promised to keep them both safe and out of treatment, and Sloane knows their love is strong enough to withstand anything. But despite the promises they made to each other, it’s getting harder to hide the truth. They are both growing weaker. Depression is setting in.
And The Program is coming for them.
Description from Open Library.
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