Publishers Weekly
05/28/2018
In space, no one can hear you scream—except for the aliens stalking you. Kenzie, 17, is a junior guard on Sanctuary, an orbital prison for superpowered teenage criminals. When she’s captured as part of a mass breakout attempt, she discovers an unexpected affinity with her captors, which comes in handy when they need to work together to survive an extraterrestrial invasion. With terrifying monsters stalking the space station and no hope of rescue, Kenzie and her new allies must use every ability at their disposal to escape. In this debut, Lix pays obvious homage to comics and movies such as the X-Men and Alien, creating a tense, claustrophobic thriller that finds room for romance along the way. While the premise is engaging, the worldbuilding feels lacking in places, leading to unanswered questions. The juxtaposition of superpowered teenagers, marauding aliens, corrupt corporations, and dark secrets makes this an exciting, if overstuffed and sometimes disjointed, story. However, the diverse cast and fast pace make up for these flaws. Ages 14–up. Agent: Caitie Flum, Liza Dawson Assoc. (July)
Booklist
"The teen characters are engaging, and readers will find themselves rooting for the budding romances and holding their breath as the heroes tiptoe down dark hallways to find a way to defeat their foes."
School Library Connection
"A fast-paced, action oriented story that will have readers turning the pages as quickly as possible to find out what happens next...This is a fun read for sci-fi fans."
BCCB
"Lix’s breakneck pacing keeps the pages flying...and the unplumbed depths of Omnistellar’s presence provide plenty of scope for later adventure. Lix leaves readers just where she wants them."
Quill & Quire
Caryn Lix takes the prison thriller genre to new places in this YA novel.
May 15, 2018 - Booklist
As the story opens on the prison facility–spaceship known as Sanctuary, 17-year-old Kenzie is all that stands between a gang of suddenly free, superpowered teen inmates and the universe. Her mother, the ship’s commander, is wounded or dead, and it appears that Sanctuary is also under attack from an alien presence. Amidst this chaos, Kenzie discovers she has been a different sort of prisoner aboard Sanctuary and that the “bad guys” might not be so bad after all. First-time author Lix creates an energetic novel that dispatches the adults early so that the superpowered teens can come into their own. Kenzie is slowly won over to the side of the teen prisoners, whose backstories reveal Sanctuary’s corporate owners as the true criminals. Though Kenzie’s own ability becomes too convenient a plot device, the teen characters are engaging, and readers will find themselves rooting for the budding romances and holding their breath as the heroes tiptoe down dark hallways to find a way to defeat their foes. — Cindy Welch
School Library Journal
05/01/2018
Gr 9 Up—Kenzie knew her duty to Omnistellar as a junior guard: protect the world from the criminal super-powered teenagers imprisoned on Sanctuary. Considering the security measures in place, the job was not too complicated, and she had her parents there for support. However, when a supposed drill turns into something more, Kenzie finds herself taken hostage by the ruthless prisoners. But as she gets to know them, they do not seem as bad as she thought. She begins to question what crime was so bad they were imprisoned for years. When an even greater danger threatens them all, she must learn to trust and rely on those she was taught to hate and fear. This sci-fi fantasy is filled with YA characters having to determine what is right and face serious consequences for whatever they decide. Lix's novel keeps teens guessing what is really going on and who will win this epic space battle. The ending will leave readers hoping for a sequel. VERDICT YA sci-fi fans will enjoy this wild ride through space.—Jessica Perovich, US Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit Library
Kirkus Reviews
2018-04-30
A loyal corporate citizen teams up with the prisoners she guards at a space station jail for superpowered criminal teens.Corporate citizenship carries greater entitlements and privilege than government citizenship, and the top corporation is Omnistellar Concepts. Raised by her intensely loyal Omnistellar family, teen junior guard Kenzie is eager to earn her own future in the company. She works with her parents on Sanctuary, a space station prison for juvenile anomalies—superpowered people who started appearing after mysterious alien probes arrived on Earth. When the skeleton crew is further reduced, Kenzie is taken hostage in a prison break attempt. The leader of her captors is an incredibly attractive, charismatic, and good-hearted Chinese teen nicknamed "Cage." Through talking with him—and while grappling with whether or not her mother will follow protocol and sacrifice her own daughter—Kenzie comes to question everything about the system she's been benefitting from. Luckily, that somewhat overplayed storyline is freshened with the arrival of a monstrous alien threat, which motivates Kenzie to work with the prisoners in order to survive a cat-and-mouse sequence of action and escapes. The high body count includes some unexpected fatalities, and the ending points to a sequel. Main characters are white, and aside from Cage and his sister, other people of color are represented among secondary characters.Standard-issue corporate dystopia gives way to more compelling xenomorphic action and horror. (Science fiction. 12-adult)
