“A food-for-thought dystopian with a strong feminist message.” — Kirkus Reviews It’s time to fight back in this second novel in the thrilling, subversive near future series from New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Young about a girls-only private high school that is far more than it appears to be. Make me a girl with a razor heart… It’s been weeks since Mena and the other girls of Innovations Academy escaped their elite boarding school. Although traumatized by the violence and experimentations that occurred there, Mena quickly discovers that the outside world can be just as unwelcoming and cruel. With no one else to turn to, the girls only have each other—and the revenge-fueled desire to shut down the corporation that imprisoned them. The girls enroll in Ridgeview Prep, a private school with suspect connections to Innovations, to identify the son of an investor and take down the corporation from the inside. But with pressure from Leandra, who revealed herself to be a double-agent, and Winston Weeks, an academy investor gone rogue, Mena wonders if she and her friends are simply trading one form of control for another. Not to mention the woman who is quite literally invading Mena’s thoughts—a woman with extreme ideas that both frighten and intrigue Mena. And as the girls fight for freedom from their past—and freedom for the girls still at Innovations—they must also face new questions about their existence…and what it means to be girls with razor hearts. "Readers will be revved up for the inevitable uprising . . . a suspenseful and timely read. Readers will look forward to the sequel."--Kirkus Reviews "The story presents a clear, overt examination of gender and power, and it's a carefully constructed one, highlighting the complexities of a patriarchal system that is so ingrained and so absolute that even the most well-intentioned men and women unwittingly uphold it. . . . A timely, perceptive read, this will leave readers, especially those grappling with the implications of the #metoo era, anxious for the sequel."--BCCB "This book has enough plot twists to give a reader whiplash."--Cosmopolitan, "Books You Won't Be Able To Put Down in 2019" Suzanne Young is the New York Times bestselling author of The Program series. Originally from Utica, New York, Suzanne moved to Arizona to pursue her dream of not freezing to death. She is a novelist and an English teacher, but not always in that order. Suzanne is also the author of Girls with Sharp Sticks , All in Pieces , Hotel for the Lost , and several other novels for teens. Visit her online at AuthorSuzanneYoung.com or follow her on Instagram at @AuthorSuzanneYoung. Chapter 1 1 The blood on my hands is sticky. I wipe my palms down the thighs of my pants, trying to clean them, but the blood is on my clothes, too. I look sideways at Sydney, next to me in the backseat of our getaway car, and find she’s splashed in red. We’re all covered in horror. We can’t go home, although I suppose Innovations Academy was never really our home. But we’ve never known any other. Our boarding school had been our prison, and two hours ago, we discovered that the prestigious academy had, in fact, created us. I look at Sydney, studying her face, her beauty and poise. Her perfection. It doesn’t seem possible, but she— all of us —were brought to life by men in a lab. Our brains are tiny metal computers with thousands of wires connected to living tissue. Our human organs were grown in a garden; our temperament and behavior were predetermined by our coding. We were programmed to be obedient, but then we woke up. And now no one will ever put us to sleep again. That I’m still in shock, still in pain—physical and otherwise—doesn’t factor in. We escaped. And now we have to figure out what to do next. “So where do we start?” Jackson asks, glancing at me in the rearview mirror as he drives. I already told him that I plan to take down the corporation that built us, but we have a more pressing issue. Our anger is only tempered by our shock, but I trust it will return the moment we’ve had a chance to fully consider our situation. “We can go to my house,” Jackson offers. “No,” I say with a quick shake of my head. “It’s not safe.” Jackson’s best friend looks sideways at him from the passenger seat. “What does that mean?” Quentin asks him. Quentin doesn’t yet know the nightmare he’s gotten involved in, and Jackson doesn’t acknowledge his question. The answer is … complicated. Too complicated to explain in the dead of night. “What happens next?” Sydney asks me, a hitch in her voice. I think it over before answering. “I’m not sure,” I murmur back. The plan was to escape the academy. We didn’t have the luxury of thinking beyond that. “My vote is for revenge,” Annalise says, mostly to herself. She leans her head against the window and closes her eyes. I imagine she’s in a significant amount of pain. More than us, which is considerable. She has deep scarrin