The Office of Mercy

As Orwell knew, the best dystopian fiction is close enough to reality to make it scarily believable. . . . It's the same way in Ariel Djanikian's thrilling debut The Office of Mercy. . . . At its heart, The Office of Mercy is a thriller. . . . Scary and realistic. . . Fast-paced. . . Exciting to read. . . . With Natasha, Djanikian has crafted a hero who is memorable precisely because of her imperfections. . . . It's fascinating, and at times heartbreaking, to witness her incremental growth as she begins to question everything she's been taught. It takes a blend of intelligence and compassion to pull off that kind of convincing character arc, but it also takes great authorial skill. . . . The Office of Mercy is an indisputable page turner with a surprising ending -- and crafting prose. . . . The stunning, willfully oblivious cruelty of America-Five is chilling because of its plausibility -- you don't have to look past our own history for examples of mass slaughter, eugenics and euphemized government propaganda. It's hard to miss the echoes of Orwell in Djanikian's dark vision of both the past and the future. --Michael Schaub, npr.org A cool and compelling dystopian bildungsroman from a debut author we imagine we'll be hearing a lot more from. --Emily Temple, Flavorwire A remarkable coming-of-age dystopian novel, fast-paced and thought provoking throughout. --Largehearted Boy [A] horrifically brutal, compelling debut. . . . A grim muse on a future with shades of The Hunger Games, Djanikian's first offering should attract readers voracious for this popular subgenre. -- Booklist (starred review) The title of Ariel Djanikian's first book, The Office of Mercy, is as disturbing as it is ironically fitting. Using a fresh, effortless descriptive style, Djanikian projects us into a futuristic world wiped clean by a man-made devastation called the Storm. . . . Djanikian puts us through the ethical ringer. .-