Erin Entrada Kelly creates a plausible, if bluntly drawn, near-future dystopia in The Second Life of Snap: Working-class residents of Barren, Texas, live to serve their corporate overlords in nearby Bountiful while suffering deprivation of every kind. But don’t be deceived by the bleak setting or the sharp class contrast: This book is full of hope, nuance, and reverence. 

Eleven-year-old, Filipina Zuzu lives with her widowed dad and runs with the Valleycats, a foursome of “stray” kids in one of Barren’s subsidized camps. When her laid-off dad brings home his severance, a factory-reset robot, Zuzu worries the Secure Network Android Processor will babysit her, and worse, snitch on her and her friends for playing in the off-limits local scrapyard. As Zuzu gets to know the device she dubs Snap, both are transformed: Zuzu sheds her black-and-white thinking while Snap develops what appears to be sentience, feelings, and even loyalty. 

“Do you think it’s possible to change the world?” Zuzu asked. “No. Everything’s already ruined,” Elias said… “I don’t think it’s ever too late to change things,” said Zuzu.

A different story would have gone down a number of tired, well-worn paths, but Kelly gives her young audience more credit: No one saves the world, no one starts a revolution, no one comes back from the dead (battery) just the same as before – and all for the better. In the end, changes for good do occur, but they unfold subtly and gently, just like Kelly’s themes: community, change, and the interconnectedness of things. Key offscreen actions are wisely never spelled out in detail, which might frustrate some readers used to more literal storytelling. The ending is likewise not resolved tidily and predictably, going out not with a bang but a whisper – of hope.

What to love: Intersectionally diverse, endearing characters; moral complexity; taut, straightforward writing; real-life problems portrayed relatably – from best-friend envy to climate anxiety and despair; and, dare we say, snappy humor. A book for our times. 

Reviewed by Emily Ender, Oxford Hills Middle School Library, South Paris