Overtroped YA dystopia. [Audiobook Listen // The Key To Fear by Kristin Cast]

No touching today for a healthy tomorrow.

For fifty years, the Key Corporation has defended humanity against a deadly virus that spreads through touch. Lovers don’t kiss, or even hold hands. Personal boundaries are valued above all. Break the laws, and you’ll face execution. 

Elodie, a talented young nurse, believes in the mission of the Key and has never questioned the laws that control her life. But Elodie is forced to break the rules when she sets out in search of a terminal patient who goes missing while under her care.

From the outside, it seems like Aiden was given everything he could want from the Key—a purpose, an education, and a future. But Aiden knows more than he’s letting on, and the dark secrets he’s keeping could tear the Key’s strict society apart.

When Elodie and Aiden’s lives collide, the fallout will be devastating. What do you do when the brutal system that once kept you safe hunts you down?

Run.

“For me it is key to support other women in the arts and for women to unite and support each other. When I was asked to narrate this project for Kristin Cast, I was more than excited to portray her vision and story through my tone and delivery. I am big fan of her personal story and hustle."

–Dascha Polanco, on narrating THE KEY TO FEAR audiobook

I was really excited to hear Dascha Polanco narrate an audiobook. That was a real draw when I decided to request this audiobook. And I enjoyed her narration. The underlying baseline being a Latina New Yorker accent was something to get used to, but I enjoyed it. Unfortunately there were a lot of things about Kristin Cast's The Key To Fear that I took issue with. For one, the plot pacing was wildly off. There were like five plotlines that were started and went nowhere. Sure, seeing as how this is apparently the first book in a series, it makes sense in terms of laying the foundation for sequel books. But if everything comes together topically and barely, where was the cohesion? There was none. 

Our story takes place in a 50-ish year old corporate-led, faux utopia. Apparently there was a pandemic and that's the jumping off point, the root cause, per this book, of the new world order. But how we went from ?viral? ?bacterial? pandemic to children being assigned careers at 16 years of age, I don't know. Apparently humanity routinely weathers pandemics and mass casualties, but suddenly, after whatever this pandemic was, specifically intercourse is taboo. Sure, however that works. There's a random mention of GMOs and it's like, well okay, was it a bred mutation that caused the pandemic? Is that where we're going? No? We're just talking about tasty corn? Sure.

Elodie, our female protagonist, is so ridiculously naïve. A few characters are. Ever after they've verbalized doubts and accepted new truths, they are still working off internalized propaganda and lies. But yes, that's a part of the process of unlearning. Some leeway needs to be given. Cool. But all the sudden naivete and plot convenience for the sake of the pushed romance? Cool, cool. But then we're still doing that thing where people who believe the company line are absolutely evil? Cool, cool. Take for instance Blair, sister to our male protagonist, Aiden, who is characterized as doing anything and everything for her brother. A loving big sister. We are made to know that her brother sees her as such.  But he casts her away and never tries or tried to sway her his way? He clung to his adoptive mother and blames his sister for her eventual suicide? A suicide that really made no sense by the way. Because if you set conditions for your exchange/willful surrender but then kill yourself before seeing them made good, what was the point? In fact, all we have is an already isolated older sister, who had apparently been written off in terms of "sides", only further isolated. 

And then, if the whole thing of the dystopia is pandemic and monoculture, why is kissing the crux of the story? We don't hear near enough about the direct threat of the contagion, let along the pandemic aftermath to feel so ominous about the looming threat of it reoccurring. There were a lot of things that didn't make sense to me. In fact, that, with regard to the kiss, either character acted so spontaneously and irrationally, AND IN PUBLIC, was just so ridiculous. I couldn't suspend my disbelief for that one. While I'm not entirely adverse to continuing on with the story of The Key, I'm not overly enthusiastic at the prospect. This was a 2 star listen for me.

The Key To Fear audiobook was published October 2020.