12 must-read YA book releases to spring into this April
By Lacy Baugher
April 2021 release: The Infinity Courts – Akemi Dawn Bowman
Author Akemi Dawn Bowman is known for her diverse YA contemporary stories, which deal with topics that range from mental health to identity to family. The Infinity Courts is her first sci-fi/fantasy novel, and it sounds very different from much of what’s out there at the moment, a cross between Black Mirror and Warcross.
It follows the story of an eighteen-year-old girl named Naomi, who is murdered just after her high school graduation. But that’s the beginning of her story, not the end of it.
When she wakes, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousnesses go when they die. But the afterlife has been taken over by a vicious AI, which is forcing human spirits into servitude, and a small band of rebels is humanity’s only hope. Provided, of course, they can avoid being sent to the prison courts of Famine, War, and Death.
Torn between her pacifist nature and her desire to protect the afterlife for her family who will one day arrive in it, Nami might make a choice about whose side she’s on, and how far she’s willing to go in the name of freedom.
The official synopsis offers more details about the story.
"Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her—including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years. The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there. When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she’d been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all. As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human."
The Infinity Courts is available on April 6.