First published 2021
On the frozen world of Abeth, a girl named Yaz has always been different. Her people survive the endless cold by moving together, shedding anyone who cannot keep pace. Variation is not tolerated. Children who fall outside the narrow range of what the ice permits are brought to a hole east of the Black Rock and dropped in. Yaz is one of them. She loses her family, the boy she expected to grow old beside, and every certainty she has ever held. Below the surface she finds a world she never knew existed, full of strange people, old mysteries, and real danger. She also finds something harder to name: the possibility that the traits that made her unfit above ground are exactly what she needs down here. Abeth is older and stranger than her people ever told her. The rules that governed her life were not the only rules. Yaz has to build a new path from scratch, in the dark, with almost nothing. The cold arithmetic her people live by has always decided who matters. Yaz begins to question whether that arithmetic was ever right.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, adventure, coming-of-age, fantasy, young-adult
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, gritty, introspective, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: chosen-one, fish-out-of-water, found-family, self-discovery
Setting: Abeth, Black Rock
470 pages · Paperback · Harper Voyager
Content warnings: ableism, death