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ARC for review.

Incredibly impressed by this debut novel - it reminded me a of Never Let Me Go for the young set. Tania is a pre-teen living in 2049 England and is recording her life in a diary. The world-wide birth rate has dropped to practically nil and in order to keep society sane adults are permitted to fulfill some deep-seated urge to parent (I'm not sure I really got this part. I'm childless and while I might be crazy, it's not because some primal urge to change diapers, go to Disney and bankrupt myself paying for college is being repressed) they are able to purchase robot children. At first glance the children are indistinguishable from real children and they all go to school together. Every two years they go back to the factory to be "aged". Ah, but the rub? The children are only leased and at eighteen have to be returned (now THAT is the part that sounds like would create societal rebellion).

We follow Tania through her youth as she makes friends, falls in love (both with a boy and with music) and lives her life. Interspersed with her entries are the thoughts of some entity in the future who is reading through her diary. (view spoiler)[ I have to admit that I spent the second half of the book hoping that it would just be a wonderful stand-alone, but it looks like there's definitely a possibility of more (hide spoiler)].

And a nice passage: "Our love affair with language, Miss Deeley. How dull to be an animal, knowing only words. To be human is to feel, which is to give expression and texture to our emotions through literature."