dystopian books | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Book Review: The Verdant Cage by Jess Lourey

The Verdant Cage, by Jess Lourey
Mayhem Books, April 2026
ISBN: 9781682816455
Available: Hardcover, ebook edition
Buy: Bookshop.org

The Verdant Cage is a decent YA dystopian novel that in terms of basic setup, strongly resembles the old M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village: small utopian, self-sustaining community cut off from the rest of the world behind a wall in an idyllic village, no electricity, they all live in peace and harmony. It’s a good read, although a bit slow and predictable through the first two-thirds. However, the payoff and increased pace in the last third of the book are worth the wait. As far as where it falls in quality in the YA dystopian genre, it is certainly a good deal better than the Divergent series, if not quite at the level of The Hunger Games.

The first third of the story is basically stage-setting, getting the characters and location characteristics into place, and there’s a fair amount to cover. It’s a reasonably large cast of characters, each of them working in different Houses, where they apply their trades, such as Apothecary, Cobbler, Insect Farmer… there are at least 15 houses. Thankfully, the author had the foresight to include an appendix at the end, a very helpful idea that more authors today should consider. While the setup is well done and detailed (cricket flour was a nice touch, in terms of creativity for a modern self-sustaining community) the plot here is guessable. Teenage protagonist Rose Allgood is stuck with a pre-arranged marriage to someone she doesn’t like, but used to; murder happens in a community that has never seen such a thing; no one knows how or why they wound up in Noah’s Valley…predictable, but still interesting. The setting and character interactions are intriguing enough to keep the reader engaged at that point. The author did enough research to make the community feel believable, in terms of how trades such as a medic would function in pre-modern times. It’s a good job of world building, very in-depth, and it feels realistic.

Rose’s brother is the person labeled responsible for the murder of her mother, at which point he is sent up and over the Wall, to his likely death. Naturally, Rose isn’t buying it, and about half the book is her trying to find out who is responsible, which of course slowly leads to her uncovering certain hidden truths about Noah’s Valley. Once she puts all the pieces together in the last part of the book, the story takes off and improves dramatically. Faster pacing, and the shifting loyalties and double-crossing by many characters make the plot much more engaging, and less predictable. The big reveal in terms of the Valley and the history of its inhabitants is outstanding: very high marks for creativity to the author! It adds an unexpected change to the plot, and a much wider lens for the story. The book continues in high gear right up to the end, with an open-ended finale. I expect a lot of readers might wind up screaming for a sequel due to the ending, as there is potentially a LOT of story to tell, and the ending’s nature makes it a perfect fit. However, I would actually vote against another one. I liked the ambiguous ending and feel it should be left where it is. Let the reader imagine what happens next.

For readers that can exercise a bit of patience to wait for the story to get rolling, this one is worth the time invested. The big payoff certainly is enough to justify reading this.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Book Review: Lichtenberg by Tom O’Connell

Lichtenberg by Tom O’Connell

Temple Dark Books, 2025

ISBN: 9781068250736

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

Buy: Amazon.com | Temple Dark Books

Lichtenberg is a grim, bleak dystopian tale that keeps the reader interested throughout, because it always maintains a flicker of hope throughout the novel. For the readers out there that enjoyed books like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, this should be a perfect read. The book is written in the present tense from the perspective of Riven, a soldier in the Corps, the group tasked with protecting the City of Raidon from the Ramasites. Raidon is one of the remaining bastions of civilization, and all inhabitants have one fear: that the Ramasites, humans trying to survive outside the city, will one day band together and destroy it. No matter that none of the city’s inhabitants remember the time before whatever calamity happened, it’s just what they have been told, and it’s what the historical archives tell them.

The job of the Corps, a loosely disciplined army of troops that love violence, is simple: patrol the countryside, and kill anyone they find. Men, women, children– all are a threat, and must be eliminated. The plot centers on Riven, and the doubts he starts having with the validity of the mission of the Corps, which of course is its only reason for existence. The narrative is really more about Riven and how he sees things. That’s why the first-person present tense (a style I normally loathe) actually works for this book. It lets the reader get into Riven’s head in an immersive and immediate way. A significant amount of the writing concerns Riven’s thoughts and feelings regarding the Corps and what they do. It’s a fairly in-depth character study, and it is well done. The story doesn’t provide any information from before Riven’s time, or after it, since he is the focal point of the story. This is one of the few times I have read a book written in this style that actually works, since too many books written in the present tense come off like bad movie scripts.

This is not just a detailed psychological novel: there are plenty of things happening in the story, more than enough to keep the pages flipping. The interactions between the Corps and Ramasites provide a good deal of the action, as well as some of the basis for Riven’s discontent. There are violent gun battles that show the inhumanity of the Corps members, and some of the training that takes place inside the walls of Raidon helps explain how the soldiers became what they are. When you are raised on violence, you are likely to do the same to others, as they demonstrate on the Ramasites. It all builds to a very satisfying conclusion that hits with a bang, and Riven’s fate is quite dramatic: it would look incredible on the silver screen. The only thing I didn’t understand was the brief epilogue chapter, The way the book ended before that was perfect as it was: open ended, but with hope for the future. In closing, definitely a good one, and worth checking out. Recommended.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson