MARTians by Blythe Woolston (author) (UK edition)

Award-winning author Blythe Woolston conjures an alien yet strangely familiar world of big box stores and suburban decay. Here, daily routine revolves around shopping – for those who can. For Zoe, the mission is simpler: live.

Sharp and satirical, this dark comedy will appeal to fans of M.T. Anderson’s groundbreaking dystopia, Feed. An unsettling story of consumerism gone mad, MARTians brilliantly imagines “a world that is part Kafka and part Orwell” (Booklist).

Last girl Zoe Zindleman, numerical ID 009-99-9999, is starting work at AllMART, where “your smile is the AllMART welcome mat”. Her living arrangements are equally bleak: she can wait for her home to be repossessed now that AnnaMom has left, or move to the Warren, an abandoned shopping centre, to live with the other left-behind children. As Zoe struggles to find her place in a world that has consumed itself beyond redemption, she realizes she isn’t ready to disappear into the AllMART abyss quite yet. Zoe wants to live.