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The Boy Who Learned to Live

by D. N. Moore

A sheltered life gives way to a dangerous world outside

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A sheltered life gives way to a dangerous world outside

In 2085, Oliver has spent his life indoors in the Fifth City, where daily activities are mediated by simulations and basic needs arrive at his apartment. After waking drugged in the woods, he is taken into a hidden community that rejects modern technology and lives under the pressure of secrecy and strict rules. The contrast between Oliver’s controlled upbringing and the dangers beyond the city drives this dystopian psychological thriller. As people begin disappearing from the cave network, suspicion turns toward the newcomer. Oliver must contend both with threats to the community and with uncertainty about the voices in his head and his own reliability.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Teen and young adult readers interested in dystopian fiction.
  • Readers who enjoy stories about survival beyond controlled or technology-dependent societies.
  • Readers interested in psychological uncertainty alongside speculative danger.

Themes

Technological isolationSurvival and adaptationTrust and suspicionSelf-perception and mental uncertaintyCommunity rules and secrecy

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

From award-winning author D.N. Moore comes a dystopian psychological thriller set in the year 2085, perfect for fans of The Giver and The Maze Runner.

 

Seventeen-year-old Oliver Mc'Neil has never been outside. Like everyone else in the Fifth City in the year 2085, he and his mother live in an apartment where the air and water are sterile, their food is couriered to them, and all their activities are done indoors on sims, machines that simulate life using computer monitors, virtual reality headsets, and holograms.

 

When Oliver wakes up in the middle of the woods drugged and delirious, he has no idea how he got there, but he is certain it is a death sentence. He is taken in by the rugged and beautiful Autumn, whose family is loud, rambunctious, and three children over the legal birth limit. They are outlaws, living with thousands of others in a network of underground caves, where modern technology is forbidden and secrecy is paramount. Oliver must learn to survive in a land that is wild and dangerous, while battling voices in his head that haunt him day and night. He doesn't know if the hallucinations are due to withdrawals from the mind-numbing medication he has taken every day of his life, or if he truly is the monster he appears to be. One thing he is certain of: he will do whatever it takes to protect Autumn, the girl who saved his life.

 

Cave sentries begin to go missing, leading to a series of disasters and growing suspicion about Oliver's appearance in the caves. Now his choices will either save or endanger his friends. Will he ever be able to trust himself in this strange new life?

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