The Program by Suzanne Young 405 pages A YA novel (Gateway nominee 2015-2016)

First, a personal disclosure:  I am not a teenager.  It has been a looong time since I have been a teenager, or even had a teen child. Having said that, you can take my review of this book with a grain of salt.  I found this book dark and disturbing and will NEVER recommend it to a teen.  After I read it, I went back and read reviews to see what it was I missed, but I still do not see why everyone so loves this book...everyone but me!

Picture a future society where there is an epidemic of teen suicides.  So much so that "the Program" has been created.  Now if your teen so much as sheds a tear in public, you can have a handler haul them off to have all their unpleasant memories erased.  They will not remember how their brother died, instead, they will believe any lie you tell them.  They will not remember their boyfriend or their best friend if, by association, it will make them remember something sad.  The teens are constantly being watched and "The Program" has turned some of their friends into such zombies that suicide seems a viable alternative.  Antidepressants are bad, but drugs that erase your memories are good?  This book is the first in a series, but needless to say, I will not be reading any of the others.

Human Remains by Elizabeth Haynes 438 pages

 Annabel doesn’t have much of a life. She is a police analyst, she lives alone but for her cat, she has no friends and she takes care of her aging mother. When she discovers her neighbors decomposing body in the house next door and realizes that nobody even missed her she begins an investigation to determine how many people actually die alone and forgotten. She is appalled at the inordinate amount she discovers in her town. Using her skills as an analyst she discovers a pattern and realizes that something is not quite right.

Human Remains alternates between Annabel’s narration and the actual killer’s although I’m not quite sure you can call him a killer since the victim’s all commit suicide. But he does play a part.

This is another case of choosing a book based on an author’s previous work and while it had an unusual and original premise it didn’t quite measure up to her earlier work. Too many bodies probably.