Candor is a dystopian novel more along the lines of The Giver and Matched than The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner. However, unlike in The Giver and Matched, I believe the mastermind and some others know what they are doing to people is bad even if they believe the results are good. One element I especially liked about Candor is that it did not end the way I expected.
The premise is that in Candor, FL everyone is controlled by subliminal messages embedded in music that plays all the time. In fact, once someone has lived there for a while, going without the "Messages" results in insanity and death. Oscar's father is the developer of the technique along with the town. Adults who bring their families there know what is happening, most of the children do not. Oscar of course is one of the ones who does know exactly what happens to people when they move in. Some of what goes on in the novel is predictable (romance, friendships, themes of authority vs. autonomy), but generally the book is an original take that poses interesting questions about the power of adult authority and teen rebeillion.
