Charbonneau, Joelle
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1974- ) US author almost exclusively of work for Young Adult audiences, her early series being nonfantastic. She is initially of sf interest for the Testing Trilogy beginning with The Testing Guide (1 April 2013 Tor.com; 2013 ebook) and The Testing (2013), set in a savagely devastated Near Future world whose only hope may reside in those adolescents who pass the Testing and are allowed to attend university, where they will be trained to save what is left of the planet. For the young protagonist, complexities of romance interfere with any clear view of things, though she eventually understands that she may be privy to the Dystopian secret behind the contrivances of this world.
Two singletons are also of interest. In NEED (2015), an online site offers solutions to any problems, including terminal illnesses; but responders find themselves entrapped in a maze of exploitation at the behest of a private company. Verify (2019) is set in a vast Near Future enclave called Chicago, whose nature is concealed from its inhabitants; beyond its invisible walls, as the young protagonist discovers, lies Dystopia. [JC]
Joelle Charbonneau
born Chicago, Illinois: 4 November 1974
works (selected)
series
Testing Trilogy
- The Testing Guide (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) [ebook: first appeared 1 April 2013 Tor.com: Testing Trilogy: na/]
- The Testing (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) [Testing Trilogy: hb/Sammy Yuen]
- Independent Study (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014) [Testing Trilogy: hb/Sammy Yuen]
- Graduation Day (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014) [Testing Trilogy: hb/Sammy Yuen]
individual titles
- NEED (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015) [hb/Alessio Albi]
- Verify (New York: HarperTeen, 2019) [hb/Edel Rodriguez]
links
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