In the future, your path forward — career, wealth, love — is all predetermined by your past.
Eighteen-year-old Sivon is about to find out who she really is. She’s about to report to her local governmental processing system to undergo the “kirling,” the act of soul-identification. She’ll be matched with her soul and past lives, which will give her guidance as to which career is right for her, and if she’s lucky, a nice inheritance left by her past self and maybe even a soulmate. Not everyone is so lucky — some people find out they are bad souls. They leave the processing center in handcuffs, destined to finish prison sentences and pay off outstanding debts.
Book Review
“Soulmatch” by Rebecca Danzenbaker
Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
496 pages
$19.99
Sivon isn’t so sure about undergoing the process. Sure, her best friends Cora and Vivi, twins, had spectacular results. They’re already off at university, studying to be intelligence agents, as they were in past lives, and have inherited a substantial amount of funds. They’ve also learned they’re soulmates, traveling throughout time together.
But Cora and Vivi, now known in public by their soulnames Kitsune and Raposa, have always been pulled toward the field of intelligence. Sivon, who excels at chess and strategy games, isn’t pulled toward any such field of study. That’s worrisome, as the notorious Flavinsky — a traitor who escapes their prison sentence every 18 years by committing suicide — is expected to be identified soon.
Sivon has always known deep down that her soul is different, but even she’s surprised by the results of her kirling. She soon finds herself an object of public scrutiny and anonymous threats, with a surly bodyguard who she’s not sure she can trust. Sivon has to quickly decide who has her best interests in mind. As she navigates a world in which evil still thrives despite the kirling process, Sivon and her friends will quickly learn how deep the corruption is, as they race against time to stop the bad souls who have infiltrated the highest ranks.
Set 300 years after World War III, “Soulmatch,” by Rebecca Danzenbaker, is the dystopian thriller you didn’t know you’ve been waiting for.
Like its predecessors, “The Hunger Games” and “Allegiant,” this YA thriller has a strong female lead who is driven to save the world she knows from corruption and societal evils. (Slow-burn romance, also included.) And while it shares the same high-stakes tension and systemic controls central to dystopian stories, “Soulmatch” veers away from the survival-game trope emulated in other series, instead, leaning into themes of identity and institutional justice. This fast-paced fever dream of a novel is one you won’t want to put down.
BOOK REVIEW
“Soulmatch” by Rebecca Danzenbaker
Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
496 pages
$19.99