Published synopsis:
Helper12 works as a Baby Helper in Pre Ward, the place where babies spend their first six months of life before they’re tracked for vocations and sent to training. She does her job well, and she stays out of trouble. But one day, the Sloanes, Society members who enjoy all the privileges of their station—family unit clearance, a private dwelling, access to good food and good schools—come to “adopt” one of the Pre Ward babies. The Director makes a deal and the Sloanes walk out with a brand new child.They also walk out owning Helper12—the Director sells her to them, and there’s nothing she can do but go. At the Sloanes, Helper12 enters a world where people should be able to enjoy life—with high position and riches come the opportunity for individual freedom, even the chance to love—but that’s not what she finds. The Sloanes are keeping secrets. So is their biological son, Thomas.
Helper12 has some secrets of her own; she’s drawing, which is a violation, since Baby Helpers aren’t tracked for Art. And she’s growing to love the child she was bought to care for—at the same time that Ms. Sloane is becoming disenchanted with her impulse baby buy.
When all your choices are made for you, how do you make some for yourself? Helper12 is about to find out.
Review:
Helper12’s life has been laid out for her since she was born. She was tracked as a baby helper and she was given just enough education to be able to do her job. As long as she did her job well and didn’t break any of the numerous rules society has set on her social class, she could go home every night to her monitored cube in a sub-standard housing community. At least, she could until she was sold to the Sloanes.Reminiscent of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s tale, Jack Blaine brings the reader to a future where there are Society members and there are human cattle. Cattle who will be turned into Breeders, Helpers, Laborers, and even Leisure Dolls. And there’s nothing the human cattle can do about it. Any resistance will lead to a much harsher life or death, and that’s enough to make even your closest friend turn you in for fear of being thought of as a coconspirator. So, Helper12 is completely unprepared when she’s thrust into the privileged life of the Sloanes. She’s even more unprepared for their son. Is she willing to risk the Labor Camps or death for the possibility of life without boundaries?
Helper12 is a well written story of the road to freedom and the difficult choices that have to be made to get there. Jack Blaine pulls the reader into the harsh world he has created and he doesn’t let you go. The feelings his characters display let you feel their sorrow and pain, and even their hope. What little there is of it, anyway.
The one thing I felt the book didn’t have enough of was backstory. I liked the approach the author took with immersing the reader immediately into the sometimes horrific world his characters live in, but it would have been interesting to read a little bit of how this society came to be. What drives some people to treat others so harshly? Was it world war, pestilence, or just a swing in the morals of human kind? Aside from that, I found Helper12 to be an interesting character study of human emotions. I thank the author for providing me with a review copy and I give the book four stars.
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