I was so eager to begin Poster Girl, the new one by Veronica Roth. I’m a huge fan of the Divergent series and Roth did not disappoint.

First scenes are a bit confusing but so intriguing. She really grabs the reader and has you asking, “What happened here?” We are introduced to names like Aperture, Sectors, Delegation and Triumvirate. Who are these groups and what do they stand for? Bit by bit we begin to understand the social structure. We follow Sonya, the Delegation’s world renowned “poster girl”, as she works to earn her freedom while finally being allowed to explore the post revolution society.

Roth does what she did so well in the Divergent series. She sucks you into this vivid dystopian world of haves and have nots, while symbolically speaking to our own modern culture. Freedom, power, privacy, surveillance, and information are concepts that are explored here.

I really enjoyed this one and I think you will too! I’m looking forward to reading what others think about this one. I’m betting this one will make it to the screen.

Thank you to NetGalley and WilliamMorrow for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

very well written book. i will definitely be recommending to my peers and followers. the plot was unlike anything I have read before and I am interested in more of this author's work.

From the start, I was totally sucked into this quiet and subtle story about government overreach and how surveillance through technology can certainly be abused by even the most well meaning people. The writing is fantastic and the characters are as morally gray as they can get and it will keep you thinking as you turn those pages.

Sonya is a very sympathetic character. She basically ends up in prison because of the sins of her father, as many of children in the old government did. But she was too old and too well known to be let out, like many of the other children were. She has a quiet strength that served her well under the old and the new government. She is also smart in a way that lets her figure out who can help her with what happened to Grace Ward. I really appreciated that she didn’t give up, even when things got very tough for her.

There are a lot of secondary characters that were fun and mostly well fleshed out. There were many in the prison with her that helps her with finding the answers as well as helped her to survive. I loved some of the characters she meets on the outside as well, especially Emily Knox, a computer hacker who is the one who helps Sonya the most. I also like Alexander, her love interest and also someone from her past. They were both well drawn characters and people I could relate to.

The real star of this story though is the setting/world building and the plot. It is a quiet story, and yet a lot happens in it. You get to see what the old regime, the Delegation was like through Sonya’s memories, but as she explores the outside world you get to see how the new government isn’t that much different or better than the old. There is also a lot of discussion about surveillance and how the Delegation rewarded and punished people’s behavior. There is quite a lot to think about and discuss in this one. The plot is not fast paced but it keeps you interested. The outcome is not quite what I was expecting either, and there were some good twists at the end as well.

A stunning novel that I think will get a lot of attention for its themes and well done plot. This is a stand alone and Sonya’s story is obviously done by the end of it, but I would love to see more stories set in this world. There is so much more to explore here. This is highly recommended especially if you like reading about dystopias and how technology and surveillance can be used to help but also hurt people.

I received this Advanced Reader's Copy from NetGalley in exchanged for my unbiased review.

Veronica Roth is, of course, the best-selling author of the immensely popular Divergent series for teens, as well as Chosen Ones for adults/new adults. Here we have another title that I would best categorize as New Adult. The protagonist, Sonya, is in her 20s and this has the appeal for older teen/younger adult readers of being an exploration of government overreach.

The name of this book, Poster Girl, refers to a formative instance in Sonya’s life, in which her father (a high-ranking politico in the ruling government called the Delegation) father nominates her to be the face on a soon-to-be-ubiquitous propoganda poster with the slogan “What’s Right Is Right.” With this background knowledge, it is not surprising that this book is a noir mystery set in a society that is exchanging one dystopian government for a new questionable government. Under the old government, The Delegation, all citizens were required to install an “Insight,” in their heads. Insights had most of the functions of our current smart phones including GPS, the ability to look up facts, and, importantly, a camera. The Delegation had constant access to everything that happened in citizens lives and uses that information to reward and remove DesCoins from each citizen based on their actions. (For example, something like: Making a scene -50 DesCoin; Waiting in line without complaining, +35 DesCoin, etc.). DesCoin is the primary currency.

This is a society that we, on the outside, clearly view as dystopian. However, Sonya having been born into it, it was the only government she had ever known. So although she was still a teenager when the Triumvirate took over, she wonders about her level of complicity and guilt. Note that the Insights were installed with a needle near your eye, and the connotations of a lobotomy are probably not accidental.

When the book opens, we meet Sonya in The Aperture, a prison colony for political prisoners. Her family was ranked highly in the previous government, the Delegation, and even the children of top Delegation members were arrested and imprisoned in The Aperture under the new government, the Triumvirate. However, Sonya has been alone in The Aperture for years when the story begins and it becomes clear why her family are not with her relatively quickly. Prisoners in The Aperture still have their Insights installed, but all other citizens under the Triumvirate have their Insights removed and now use unattached devices called Elicits.

All of this detail may seem like I should issue a spoiler alert, but, in fact, this is just a book with a really well-fleshed out backstory. Poster Girl is, at its core, a hard-boiled detective story (Sonya is necessarily tough, and does not show her emotions) set in a previously-dystopian now ambiguous world. The story follows Sonya as the Triumvirate asks for her help reuniting a now-teen girl with her family. Under the Delegation, she had been removed from her family for being an illegal second child, and the Triumvirate was returning these children to their families but having trouble finding this one. To this end, they would like Sonya to investigate the whereabouts of this child, and to that end, will allow her day-pass style access to leave The Aperture. (This initially requires some suspension of disbelief, but motivations will be explained.). There is a fish-out-of-water aspect to this, which I really enjoyed. As Sonya investigates, we discover more and more about what society is currently like, and what it was like under the Delegation, and I found the ending very satisfying.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I would recommend it to anyone who likes dystopian literature (looking with significances at my sister), noir literature and/or speculative fiction regarding modern society and governments. I would not recommend it for people who have trouble with speculative literature that seems a little too likely to actually happen. If you are on the fence, 100% pick it up!

What happens after the world is 'saved'? I loved this dystopian novel about what happens after we see the downfall of a harmful regime. I really appreciated the authenticity of one bad government being replaced with another. I think this was a really fascinating take on what happens to those who followed the rules even though they didn't know any better. This is the kind of dystopian world I have been craving to read about and I didn't even know it.

Roth has matured but still has her pulse on finding your place in a world run by crappy governments. Instead of treenagers, we have dulled adult prisoners; instead of factions, we have one spying, authorian government taken over by another lying opposite-but-just-as-bad one.
Roth has a lot to say about information as a resource, as well as, sacrificing autonomy and privacy for convenience. I wouldn't say this was dystopian fiction, but a nation with a big, crazy government and the people who fall victim to its laws and beliefs. Who can't relate to that?
This is a calm novel, but a lot happens. The main characters are subtle enough to make events take on more meaning. While the resolution of the book's "mystery" isn't really earth-shattering, the journey is certainly worthwhile.

**I was given this ARC by netgalley/ William Morrow (Custom House) publishing in exchange for my honest review.**

I wanted to love this book. In the first half I really was sucked into the world and the characters were endearing. As the book progressed it became a little predictable and the storyline dragged on a little bit. I really enjoyed the society that Veronica Roth created. It's incredibly interesting to see the perspective of a society 10 years after the fall of a totalitarian government. The long term consequences of not just the choices you make but everyone around you. How difficult it can be to move past realizing you're on the wrong side of history. Should the sins of the father be passed down to the children?

I love this new Veronica Roth era. When I first read Divergent 8 years ago (yeah, I was late to the party), I saw potential in the writing. In a sea of “same” YA dystopian, she stood out with the quality and depth of her prose. And with both Chosen Ones and now Poster Girl, she weaponizes the beauty of those words to bring stark contrast to the fascinating and messily internal plots.

I love that Sonya, our main character, would have been a villain in a book like Divergent. But now she’s lived long enough to be angry and confused and hesitant. One of my favorite little tidbits was how often she slips into “brainwashed” mode and has to consciously take a step back from her initial response. I love how Roth doesn’t shy away from the reality that not all people are equal under the law, because our white main character is also learning that and it’s a great conversation starter for white readers to chew on. And I like the discussion of apologies and blame and “swallowing” anger versus accepting/forgiving an apology. Because it was messy and it felt very real.

This is a book I would 100% go back to.

Veronica Roth does know her way around a dystopian future. In this story, Sonya Kantor is the literal poster girl of an ousted regime known as the Delegation. As one of their symbols, and as the daughter of a prominent member of the Delegation, she has been imprisoned in the Aperture, which basically seems to be a set of four big apartment buildings, for the last ten years. The Triumvirate, now the governing body, passed an act allowing children of the Delegation who were imprisoned at 16 or younger to be released. Sonya just missed the cutoff, but she gets an offer from a member of the post-Delegation government that she can be released if she finds Grace Ward, an illegal second child who went missing under the Delegation. This government agent happens to be Alexander Price, the brother of Sonya's Delegation-approved betrothed and the son of Nikhil, one of her closest friends in the Aperture. While trying to find Grace Ward, Sonya comes across a morally and legally questionable tech expert, a group calling itself the Analog Army that wants to go back to pre-Delegation technology (under the Delegation, everyone had a computer chip called Insight implanted, which tracked their every move and ultimately gamified their life, giving and taking DesCoin credits based on the morality of their behaviors), a journalist, and some other government officials. Ultimately this was pretty depressing, but I thought the writing was strong and the mystery pretty compelling. It was an interesting choice to weave world-building throughout the book, rather than giving a big info dump as exposition, so there were moments when I wasn't sure what exactly had happened in this society, but ultimately those questions were answered as the story went on. I've enjoyed Roth's books generally, and this was no exception.

I'm always going to enjoy dystopian. I never moved on from that era in fiction. Divergent has always been a favorite of mine (though just the first book, I never finished the series) but I haven't read anything from Veronica Roth since then. I think she did a great job with the dystopian genre yet again. This has some amazing commentary and I absolutely devoured this story. If you're not over the dystopian genre yet like me, I'd highly recommend picking this one up when it comes out.

Marketed as a dystopian, told as a mystery, most accurately speculative fiction, Poster Girl is a creative more modern take on the Big Brother society from 1984, adding in where technology would play role. It has been a few years since I picked up a dystopian but I had no problem jumping right back in and loving this. Taking place after the government has already been overthrown, it feels more like a thriller than the dark despair dystopian genre can sometimes feel.

Despite Sonya being around 27 at the time of the story, this reads like a YA but with a lead character that makes better decisions than is typical for the genre. When she decides to take on the mystery to possibly earn her freedom, she starts the journey to discover the errors in the society in which she was raised.

Veronica Roth has done it again! In Poster Girl, she writes about a women in search of a missing girl following the collapse of a government controlled regime in a dystopian society. This is an original dystopian story in that it follows the aftermath of the fall of the government and it follows someone who benefitted from the former system. The characters are compelling and well-developed. Highly recommended! If you enjoy original dystopian novels, Poster Girl is one that can't be missed. Be sure to check out Poster Girl today.

Poster Girl
by Veronica Roth
Pub Date: October 18, 2022
William Morrow & Company
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.
With razor-sharp prose, Poster Girl is a haunting dystopian mystery that explores the expanding role of surveillance on society--an inescapable reality that we welcome all too easily.
I am glad to recommend this book to our young adult readers. It was well done!
5 stars

Every time I read a book from this author, I am reminded how much I love her writing! After the Carve the Mark duology and then Chosen Ones, “Poster Girl” is another great outing from Veronica Roth.

This book is about a girl who is living in a future time period after the fall of an oppressive dystopian regime. The main character Sonya is given a task, and if she completes it she will earn her own freedom. This book was immediately interesting to me with allusions to the past history, and glimpses into a story that I hope is told by the end.

The reader is given layers and information told piece by piece, like an onion. The book felt very sad and heavy from Sonya’s perspective. I felt the weight of Sonya and her young life especially as the end of the book was near. This is not a bad thing because it was written so well.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC - another must read from Veronica Roth!

A very thought provoking dystopian book. The main character is very well developed although some of the others less so. It raises questions on everyone’s reliance on their electronic devices and how they use it and how a government can use the data gathered from those devices. For the most part I thought the book was good although I thought it fell apart a bit at the end. Overall I would recommend it.

I was obsessed with Divergent and then terribly disappointed in the books written by Veronica Roth after that series but this was more of what I loved about Divergent. It is the same genre and the writing felt more like Divergent. I am excited to share this with patrons.

An emotional dystopian with a plot that keeps you turning the page. This dystopian novel stood out due to the fact that it followed the aftermath of a government controlled regime, which was then overthrown by a one that didn't support those views any longer. Also the fact that it followed characters that supported the Delegation and were part of causing people a lot of grief. It will have you asking yourself a lot of questions throughout about human nature. The MC had made a lot of mistakes in her past that she was now paying for, but it makes her relatable on some level. "The last few days have taught her that there's no clarity in love, no honesty--that a person doesn't become better than they are just because you love them." There was a moment in the beginning of the book where I felt like the authors political feelings were being pushed on a subject instead of it coming from the character. But, overall I would highly recommended giving it a read.

While this was a self-contained story with a satisfying ending, I’d like to read more about these characters and their world. I’m hoping there’s a prequel at some point.

Poster Girl is an intriguing post-dystopian novel. Sonya Kantor, previously a poster girl for the old regime, is imprisoned with high-ranking officials, despite the fact that she was only a child when that regime fell. At the opening of the novel, she is offered the chance for release, but only if she succeeds in finding a missing girl.

I was very impressed by this novel! The prose is excellent and the pacing of the story is wonderful. At times the world-building is a bit overwhelming, but everything is so compelling that I didn't mind too much. Overall, if this is Veronica Roth's first adult novel, then I am excited for what is to come!

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for a free review copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Sonya is a teenager living in a prison community separated from society after the fall of an authoritarian government her parents were deeply involved in, and she was, quite literally, the poster girl for. The youngest prisoner left, she is given the opportunity to earn her freedom by finding a missing child who was taken from her parents during the previous regime, a task that sends her on a quest that reveals far more than she wanted to know about her family, her life before, her very reality. It is a story of how very easy it is to succumb to the ease of surveillance technology, and the ease of such technology to be misused. It's a fascinating story, dark and gritty, with badly damaged characters trying to rebuild themselves after the destruction of civil war. Not a light happy read, and no easy answers. Would be fabulous for book group discussions. Highly recommended.
My copy was an eARC from NetGalley.