Meri Beckley lives in a world without lies. When she turns on the news, she hears only the facts. When she swipes the pages of her online textbooks, she reads only the truth. When she looks at the peaceful Chicago streets, she feels the pride everyone in the country feels about the era of unprecedented hope and prosperity over which the government presides. But when Meri’s mother is killed, Meri suddenly has questions that no one else seems to be asking. And when she tries to uncover her mother’s state of mind in her last weeks, she finds herself drawn into a secret world full of facts she’s never heard and a history she didn’t know existed. Suddenly, Meri is faced with a choice between accepting the “truth” she has been taught or embracing a world the government doesn’t want anyone to see—a world where words have the power to change the course of a country, and the wrong word can get Meri killed.

Meri Buckley—or Meri Adams, as her new ID labels her—has lost everything. Her mother to a fight much bigger than herself. Her father to grief, fear, and denial. And the truth—to an overbearing government that insists that censorship and secrecy are the only path to peace. But though Meri and her band of truth-seeking Stewards did lose the first battle in their quest to enlighten the public, they have not yet lost the war. They’ve learned that society isn’t ready for the whole truth—so Meri is determined to find a way to spoon-feed the public the facts. That is, if those behind the country’s insidious system of big lies and bogus laws don’t kill her first. Fans of the Gone series and the Warcross series will devour Joelle Charbonneau’s latest whip-smart commentary on today’s world.