PANACEA

In a seemingly perfect future, a brilliant teen leads a rebellion to escape a planned mass extinction.

Set in the year 3025, Bailey’s YA SF novel centers around 16-year-old Dolthea Madras Thorpe, a teen with superhuman intelligence. She lives in the Potomac Dome, one of thousands of such domes spread across the continents that house the last of humanity in a luxurious style befitting a tropical resort. In this seemingly perfect world, every need is effortlessly met—but for Dolthea, the perfection is stifling. Life is too predictable, too controlled, planned out to the second by the omnipresent Agricultural-Geopolitical Artificial Intelligence Matrix known as AG. Her dissatisfaction only deepens when she encounters a couple in a library who have started to question whether everything is as perfect as it seems (“That’s the official line, and we don’t believe a word of it”). Soon enough, her fears are confirmed when AG announces that the overall population has become too large to sustain, so 300 domes—including the Potomac—will be shut down to cull their numbers. Refusing to accept this, Dolthea bands together with a group of friends to fight against AG’s decision—and for the freedom to decide their own fates. The futuristic SF setting is detailed without bogging the reader down in technicalities; it’s the relationships and personal growth of the characters that are at the heart of this novel. Dolthea’s transformation from a discontented teen into a powerful leader is well developed. Despite the tense stakes, there’s a healthy dose of humor (mostly present within the dialogue). The emotional beats also hit hard, maintaining a delicate balance of adolescent growing pains and the reality of running a resistance movement. The broader mechanics of AG and its motivations are less satisfyingly fleshed out, but the attention to character development and pacing distracts from this gap. Ultimately, this is not just a dystopian adventure yarn—it’s a powerful coming-of-age story. While readers may be drawn in by the SF and suspense, they’ll stay for the courage, compassion, and clarity that emerge from the characters’ emotional journeys.

A gripping blend of dystopian SF and YA drama.