Valid

From Golden Kite Award finalist Cindy Otis comes a groundbreaking dark dystopian novel that explores a world where disabled teens must work off their debts to a health-obsessed society.

In a near-future United States, citizens are stuck in an endless cycle of proving their good health to the government, lest they be marked In-Valid and considered a drain to society. Seventeen-year-old Oz Holloway has believed in and lived by these principles his whole life. Now, he faces a reality that challenges everything he’s been taught. Oz appears Valid to everyone around him, but has been gradually losing his hearing and hiding in plain sight.

When Oz gets caught breaking the law, he’s sent to do community service at the A. G. Bell Center for In-Valids. There, he meets Charlotte, who lost her arm at nine-years-old and has been In-Valid ever since. All Charlotte wants is to finish paying off her debt so she can move to an In-Valid community with her best friend Tink. But Oz’s arrival forces the two of them to realize that the government’s corruption runs deeper than they could have ever imagined, and it becomes increasingly difficult to stay silent and subservient. As In-Valids, they have been rendered invisible by society… but that might just allow them to start a revolution that the oligarchy will never see coming.

Gripping, incisive, and propulsive, Valid is an unforgettable story that critically examines how society treats those it deems lesser than and pushes the bounds of the dystopian genre.