The Roar by Emma Clayton

               

                The Roar is an exciting book about a twin brother looking for his supposedly dead sister. Mika hasn’t ever been outside The Wall, no one has. The Wall is 50 feet high, 30 feet thick, covered with razor sharp electrified wire, and has laser shooting Ghengis Borgs every couple of yards. The Wall is meant to protect the people inside from the Animal Plague. The Animal Plague is a disease that caused all animals to become crazy mindless killers, causing us to kill all living things outside the wall with chemical bombs. Ever since Mika’s twin sister Ellie was found dead Mika’s family has been torn apart. Mika refuses to believe that Ellie is dead, and will not let his parents wash his sister’s blankets because he thinks they still smell like her. When a woman from his nightmares visits his school he is automatically suspicious of what she has to say. She tells the class that they have to drink Fit Mix every day when they get to class, that there is a new game they are going to play, and that they are going to start a new fitness program. But Mika refuses and eventually is expelled for seven days. During those seven days he meets with a counselor to help him deal with the loss of Ellie. She ends up telling him that if he cooperates with the YDF, the people that are making him drink the Fit Mix, that he might just find his sister. So from then on he cooperates with the YDF so he can find his sister. When he goes to the local arcade to play the game, he finds he is a natural at it, and becomes a top player. So each day after school he goes and practices the game. When a competition comes up he and his best friend Audrey get past the first round of the game and win a vacation to an island with fake trees and animals where they and their families get to stay for a week. While they are there the remaining children have to do a set of tests where they have to lift things with their minds and are told that they are doing puzzles. Then for the rest of the vacation they play water games and Mika accidently gets shot in the leg by a harpoon. They finally get to go home for a couple of days, but then he goes to the final round and he wins it along with five others. Since he was one of the winners he won a fancy new house for him and his family. So he gets flown to his new house and all the winners and their families have a party at his house. Then suddenly everybody who has a child gets a message that their children have been taken to war by the YDF. A mob of angry parents’ forms and everybody has to flee. Mika and Audrey have to escape in a pod fighter over the wall and discover everything they have been told is a lie. Finally they get back over the wall and Mika finally reunites with his sister.