When Ella Karman debuts on the Social Stock Exchange, she finds out life as a high-profile “Influencer” isn’t what she expected. Everyone around her is consumed by their rankings, in creating the smoke and mirrors that make them the envy of the world.
But then Ella’s best friend betrays her, her rankings tank, and she loses—everything.
Leaving her old life behind, she joins Keystone, a secret … Keystone, a secret school for thieves, where students are being trained to steal everything analog and original because something—or someone—is changing history to suit their needs.
Partnered with the annoyingly hot—and utterly impossible—Garrett Alexander, who has plenty of his own secrets, Ella is forced to return to the Influencer world, while unraveling a conspiracy that began decades ago.
One wrong move and she could lose everything—again.
more
I was excited to read Keystone by Katie Delahanty since the synopsis of the book intrigued me. It was something different from what I had been reading lately. It’s a Young Adult Dystopian, and it involves a world of everyone wanting to have the highest rankings as an ‘Influencer.’ Unfortunately, if you don’t keep up with your rankings or if you do something to have your rankings tank, then you may end up being Unrankable. It’s a world where I would not want to live in at all.
The female character in the story, Ella Karman, has been hidden from that world until her parents make her debut into it. She finds out right away that she can’t trust anyone when it comes to rankings, not even her closest friend, Deena. Deena ends up betraying Ella, and she has no one to turn to in the book until someone approaches her about a secret school. She’s invited to join the secret school called Keystone, which teaches thieves otherwise known as ‘Disconnects’ (Definition: ones that don’t want to be part of Rankings and want to preserve history) to steal everything analog and original history item. This way, they can protect these items in a Vault, instead of having them changed like the Influencers keep doing out in their world.
Ella is going to learn how to become one of those thieves, and she’s forced to partner up with the annoying but sexy Garrett Alexandar. Garrett was a mysterious character in the book, and I loved the banter between Ella and Garrett. Garrett is one annoying character, but he won me over on how he protected Ella throughout the story. Ella was confused by Garrett throughout it all, but I knew there was something secretive about why Garrett was all for having Ella as a partner. I loved how Katie weaved everything together with these two at the end.
This book reminded me of the movie The Goonies, and it even references it several times in the book. The Goonieshappens to be one of my favorite movies, and I love watching it every once in a while. I loved the idea of a school teaching about stealing original history items to preserve them in a world of a digital age where everything is about who has the highest-ranking and fake people. It reminds me of what is happening in today’s world. It’s all about rankings being high and who has the most likes and friends on the Internet.
There is so much I enjoyed about this story and how Katie Delahanty kept me turning the pages, but I don’t want to give anything away. If you enjoy Young Adult Dystopian books, then I recommend this book. It’s different, which is always a plus for me. The one thing that bothered me was the ending since it left me wanting more, and I was in shock with what happened between the main characters. I needed some answers, and I’m crossing my fingers; there are more books after this one. I need more of Ella’s adventures in this world that Katie Delahanty has created for her readers.
Rating:
“Goonies Never Say Die!”
I really liked this book. It was original, fun and extremely interesting. It was a young adult dystopian fantasy set in the not too distant future and with the way technology and social media has been booming some of the concepts don’t seem too far off. The main character is Ella is the daughter of a former actor and actress who are now huge social media influencers. Her favorite movie (and mine)is the Goonies.
We have social media influencers today but they are nothing compared to these people. They have a social stock exchange and everyone has investors, so the more popular you are, the higher your value. And influencers at the highest levels will do just about anything to stay there. This is why Ella’s parents had her and also is their families biggest secret.
Ella is actually adopted, but her mother used her pregnancy to gain more popularity and so nobody can find out. However everyone has secrets and once Ella makes her debut on the social exchange at sixteen, she finds that out. She becomes an influencer like her parents and they expect her to keep high numbers like they do. In order to do that she has to keep her lifestream online much of the time or investors will not be happy. She also as to hang out with other popular influencers.
Ella finds that not only does everyone have secrets, but the top girls know hers and they are not her friends. She also is forced to do things she doesn’t like in order to keep her social standing. Early on she falls for an Australian surfer named Adam, she is betrayed by someone she thought was her friend and she finds that her parents never really loved her.
Ella ends up finding a group of disconnects who help her escape her old life and start over at Keystone to be trained as a thief. They see where the world is going and how corporations are changing the digital record of history to their own advantage. So this group has disconnected so they can’t be tracked and they steal important items from history before they are changed. Like books, art, movies and other things.
Ella finds a home at Keystone where she is accepted and where she makes actual friends. She meets Garrett who is the son of the two people who run Keystone and who is also at the the best in the classes and is set to become a full fledged initiate after he runs a heist of his own. Ella feels a strange connection to Garrett whenever she is near him. Though he has a girlfriend Chloe.
The entire premise of this book is pretty ingenious as well as the whole thieving aspect. They are learning to become thieves almost like Harry Potter learned to become a wizard at Hogwarts. The world building is spectacular. The world at Keystone is in the Redwood forest and the entrances are all hidden. The characters are all fully developed, but also many are mysterious because it is a world where you can’t really trust others. All in all, I loved it and couldn’t put the book down until I finished.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I enjoyed reading this from beginning to end.
If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on NōvelStar.
Now this is a little different from what I usually read. It’s basically a story of social media gone mad!! From birth you are put on a social platform, your whole life is for public viewing, the more views you get, the more adulation you get. If your at the top of the “social stock exchange” then there is nothing you won’t do to stay there…..
Once you get use to the jumping from past to present it an interesting read. Ella is the product of a social moment (no love) her “parents” did it to provide themselves with more ratings.
And when Ella meets a young man, (but that’s not in her timeline yet,) he has to go, and Ella is punished!!
Meeting social outcasts (or disconnects) Ella realises there is more to life than popping your life out there for all to view. And they take her to Keystone…..
Keystone is like a school for thieves. And Ella is totally out of her comfort zone. The school needs to prove to the world that someone is out to change the past. Why? And for what gain? So they steal analogue (books and anything that’s not digital)
The interaction between Garrett and Ella (she’s now called Elisha) is fun to read, their bickering will surely lead to something, (even thoughts has a girlfriend) and finding true friends, but the fake friends she had outside of Keystone.
All this makes good reading.
And all the secrets everyone has. What is Garrett hiding? Will Ella tell him about her parentage?
With the cliffhanger ending, you know I’m going to need the answer…..
This one really intrigued me from the idea being similar to the only episode of Black Mirror that I have watched. Because that’s what I was relating it to as I started the book, at first I was a bit disappointed that the story didn’t start out with us spending time with Ella in this world of being an Influencer. However, as we got further along, the way those days were brought in with her journaling to try to get past what she was feeling guilty about, it definitely hit hard how things had been and just how far she had gone, or what she had let trying to stay relevant keep her from doing even when she knew what was right and what was wrong. It was hard to wonder though, if the boy from her past, Adam, was really someone as bad as she thought at one point, or if he was someone she should have trusted. And in the end, we learn something else new about him, something I had kind of had a tiny bit of wondering about earlier on. Now, while this isn’t listed as part of a series, I sure hope that there is a sequel! It was definitely left off at the end in a way that there is so much more we could do, and I want to know it. I want all the other heists that they could go on, and even though they may have stopped the whole Smart Brain takeover as they tried, it sounds like there is still more that could be done and more to save.
I really enjoyed this book, and it kept me turning pages late into the night, so I was very glad it was during my holiday break from school when I got to read it. I’ll be putting this one in my school library for my students to read for sure!